the furrow.

Red earth
giver of all things
of the yellow grain and the oil
and the wine to all gods sacred
of the fragrant sticks that crackle in the hearth
and the crisp swaying grass
that swells to dripping the udders of the cows,
of the jessamine the girls stick in their hair
when they walk in twos and threes in the moonlight,
and of the pallid autumnal crocuses ...
are there no fields yet to plow?

Are there no fields yet to plow
where with sweat and straining of muscles
good things may be wrung from the earth
and brown limbs going home tired through the evening?

_Lanjaron_

VIII

O such a night for scaling garden walls;
to push the rose shoots silently aside
and pause a moment where the water falls
into the fountain, softly troubling the wide
bridge of stars tremblingly mirrored there
terror-pale and shaking as the real stars shake
in crystal fear lest the rustle of silence break
with a watchdog's barking.

O to scale the garden wall and fling
my life into the bowl of an adventure,
stake on the silver dice the past and future
forget the odds and lying in the garden sing
in time to the flutter of the waiting stars
madness of love for the slender ivory white
of her body hidden among dark silks where
is languidest the attar weighted air.

To drink in one strong jessamine scented draught
sadness of flesh, twining madness of the night.

O such a night for scaling garden walls;
yet I lie alone in my narrow bed
and stare at the blank walls, forever afraid,
of a watchdog's barking.

_Granada_

IX

Rain-swelled the clouds of winter
drag themselves like purple swine across the plain.
On the trees the leaves hang dripping
fast dripping away all the warm glamour
all the ceremonial paint of gorgeous bountiful autumn.

The black wet boles are vacant and dead.
Among the trampled leaves already mud
rot the husks of the rich nuts. On the hills
the snow has frozen the last pale crocuses
and the winds have robbed the smell of the thyme.

Down the wet streets of the town
from doors where the light spills out orange
over the shining irregular cobbles
and dances in ripples on gurgling gutters;
sounds the zambomba.

In t