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A Line-storm Song

    THE line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,
    The road is forlorn all day,
    Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,
    And the hoof-prints vanish away.
    The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,
    Expend their bloom in vain.
    Come over the hills and far with me,
    And be my love in the rain.
    The birds have less to say for themselves
    In the wood-world's torn despair
    Than now these numberless years the elves,
    Although they are no less there:
    All song of the woods is crushed like some
    Wild, easily shattered rose.
    Come, be my love in the wet woods; come,
    Where the boughs rain when it blows.
    There is the gale to urge behind
    And bruit our singing down,
    And the shallow waters aflutter with wind
    From which to gather your gown.
    What matter if we go clear to the west,
    And come not through dry-shod?
    For wilding brooch shall wet your breast
    The rain-fresh goldenrod.
    Oh, never this whelming east wind swells
    But it seems like the sea's return
    To the ancient lands where it left the shells
    Before the age of the fern;
    And it seems like the time when after doubt
    Our love came back amain.
    Oh, come forth into the storm and rout
    And be my love in the rain.

October

    O HUSHED October morning mild,
    Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;
    To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,
    Should waste them all.
    The crows above the forest call;
    To-morrow they may form and go.
    O hushed October morning mild,
    Begin the hours of this day slow,
    Make the day seem to us less brief.
    Hearts not averse to being beguiled,
    Beguile us in the way you know;
    Release one leaf at break of day;
    At noon release another leaf;
    One from our trees, one far away;
    Retard the sun with gentle mist;
    Enchant the land with amethyst.
    Slow, slow!
    For the grapes' sake, if they were all,
    Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,
    Whose clustered fruit must else be lost--
    For the grapes' sake along the wall.