Tangled in Stars

Poems by
Ethelwyn Wetherald

 

IN AUGUST

Now when the grove is stifled to the core,
    And all the parchèd grass is summer-killed,
    I think of vehement March, and how she filled
These arid roadsides with a murmurous pour
Of rushing streams from an exhaustless store.
5
    This breathless air to tropic slumber stilled,
    Recalls those early passionate winds that thrilled
The spirit, blending with the water’s roar.

Just as in rich and dusty-leavèd age
    The soul goes back to brood on swelling buds
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        Of hope, desire, and dream, in childhood’s clime,
So I turn backward to the spring-lit page,
    And hear with freshening heart the deep-voiced floods,
        That to the winds give their melodious rhyme. [Page 26]