AN
AUTUMN LANDSCAPE
No wind there
is that either pipes or moans;
The fields are cold and still;
the sky
Is covered
with a blue-gray sheet
Of motionless
cloud; and at my feet
The river, curling softly by,
5
Whispers and dimples round its quiet gray stones.
Along the
chill green slope that dips and heaves
The road runs rough and silent,
lined
With plum-trees,
misty and blue-gray,
And poplars
pallid as the day,
10
In masses spectral, undefined,
Pale greenish stems half hid in dry gray leaves.
And on beside
the river’s sober edge
A long fresh field lies black.
Beyond,
Low thickets
gray and reddish stand,
15
Stroked white
with birch; and near at hand
Over a little steel-smooth pond,
Hang multitudes of thin and withering sedge.
Across a
waste and solitary rise
A ploughman urges his dull team,
20
A stooped
gray figure with prone brow
That plunges
bending to the plough
With strong, uneven steps. The
stream
Rings and re-echoes with his furious cries.
Sometimes
the lowing of a cow, long-drawn,
25
Comes from far off; and crows
in strings
Pass on the
upper silences.
A flock of
small gray goldfinches,
Flown down with silvery twitterings,
Rustle among the birch-cones and are gone.
30
This day
the season seems like one that heeds,
With fixed ear and lifted hand,
All moods
that yet are known on earth,
All motions
that have faintest birth,
If haply she may understand
35
The utmost inward sense of all her deeds.
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