The windmills, like great sunflowers of steel, Lift themselves proudly over the straggling houses; And at their feet the deep blue-green alfalfa Cuts the desert like the stroke of a sword. Yellow melon flowers Crawl beneath the withered peach-trees; A date-palm throws its heavy fronds of steel Against the scoured metallic sky. The houses, doubled-roofed for coolness, Cower amid the manzanita scrub. A man with jingling spurs Walks heavily out of a vine-bowered doorway, Mounts his pony, rides away. The windmills stare at the sun. The yellow earth cracks and blisters. Everything is still. In the afternoon The wind takes dry waves of heat and tosses them, Mingled with dust, up and down the streets, Against the belfry with its green bells: And, after sunset, when the sky Becomes a green and orange fan, The windmills, like great sunflowers on dried stalks, Stare hard at the sun they cannot follow. Turning, turning, forever turning In the chill night-wind that sweeps over the valley, With the shriek and the clank of the pumps groaning beneath them, And the choking gurgle of tepid water. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MONNA INNOMINATA, A SONNET OF SONNETS: 10 by CHRISTINA GEORGINA ROSSETTI A PRAYER FOR A VERY NEW ANGEL by VIOLET ALLEYN STOREY YEW-TREES by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH THEY CALL IT BUSINESS by CHARLES G. ADAMS A SISTER OF SORROW: 1. UP THE ROAD by GORDON BOTTOMLEY |