THROUGH the smothered air the wicker finds A muttering voice, "crick" cries the embered ash, Sharp rains knap at the panes beyond the blinds, The flues and eaves moan, the jarred windows clash; And like a sea breaking its barriers, flooding New green abysses with untold uproar, The cataract nightwind whelms the time of budding, Swooping in sightless fury off the moor Into our valley. Not a star shines. Who Would guess the martin and the cuckoo come, The pear in bloom, the bloom gone from the plum, The cowslips countless as a morning dew? So mad it blows, so truceless and so grim, As if day's host of flowers were a moment's whim. |