  IN THE LAKE REGION For weeks and weeks the autumn world stood still, Clothed in the shadow of a smoky haze; The fields were dead, the wind had lost its will, And all the lands were hushed by wood and hill, In those gray, withered days. Behind a mist the blear sun rose and set, At night the moon would nestle in a cloud; The fisherman, a ghost, did cast his net; The lake its shores forgot to chafe and fret, And hushed its caverns loud. Far in the smoky woods the birds were mute, Save that from blackened tree a jay would scream, Or far in swamps the lizard’s lonesome lute Would pipe in thirst, or by some gnarlÈd root The tree-toad trilled his dream. From day to day still hushed the season’s mood, The streams stayed in their runnels shrunk and dry; Suns rose aghast by wave and shore and wood, And all the world, with ominous silence, stood In weird expectancy: When one strange night the sun like blood went down, Flooding the heavens in a ruddy hue; Red grew the lake, the sere fields parched and brown, Red grew the marshes where the creeks stole down, But never a wind-breath blew. That night I felt the winter in my veins, A joyous tremor of the icy glow; And woke to hear the north’s wild vibrant strains, While far and wide, by withered woods and plains, Fast fell the driving snow. ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED The Riverside Press CAMBRIDGE, MASS., U. S. A. Transcriber's Notes: Inconsistent punctuation changed as follows: Quotation mark removed before Those holy dreams (The Tree of Truth, stanza 11, line 2). Added quotation mark after five more days! (Unabsolved, stanza 11, line 11). Added quotation mark after To greatly fall (Phaethon, stanza 1, line 71). |
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