verdured sheaves).
Bitterly, cruelly, bleakly he lashes
His limbs that are naked of grass and leaves.

He moans in the forest for sins unforgiven
(Sins of the revelous days of June)--
Moans while the sun drifts dull from the heaven,
Giftless of heat's beshriving boon.

Long must he mourn, and long be his scourging,
(Long will the day-god aloof frown cold),
Long will earth listen the rue of his dirging--
Till the dark beads of his days are told.

TO THE SPRING WIND

Ah, what a changeling!
Yester you dashed from the west,
Altho' it is Spring,
And scattered the hail with maniac zest
Thro' the shivering corn--in scorn
For the labour of God and man.
And now from the plentiful South you haste,
With lovingest fingers,
To ruefully lift and wooingly fan
The lily that lingers a-faint on the stalk:
As if the chill waste
Of the earth's May-dreams,
The flowers so full of her joy,
Were not--as it seems--
A wanton attempt to destroy.

THE RAMBLE

Down the road which asters tangle,
Thro' the gap where green-briar twines,
By the path where dry leaves dangle
Sere from the ivy vines

We go--by sedgy fallows
And along the stifled brook,
Till it stops in lushy mallows
Just at the bridge's crook.

Then, again, o'er fence, thro' thicket,
To the mouth of the rough ravine,
Where the weird leaf-hidden cricket
Chirrs thro' the weirder green,

There's a way, o'er rocks--but quicker
Is the beat of heart and foot,
As the beams above us flicker
Sun upon moss and root!

And we leap--as wildness tingles
From the air into our blood--
With a cry thro' golden dingles
Hid in the heart of the wood.

Oh, the wood with winds a-wrestle!
With the nut and acorn strown!
Oh, the wood where creepers trestle
Tree unto tree o'ergrown!

With a climb the ledging summit
Of the hill is reached in glee.
For an hour we gaze off from it
Into the sky's blue sea.

But a bell and sunset's crimson
Soon recall the homeward path.
And we turn as the glory dims on
The hay-field's mounded math.

Thro' the soft and silent twilight
We come, to the stile at last,
As the clear undying eyelight
Of the stars tells day is past.

RETURN

Ah, it was here--September