RED-WINDING from the sleepy town, One takes the lone, forgotten lane Straight through the hills. A brush-bird brown Bubbles in thorn-flowers, sweet with rain, Where breezes bend the gleaming grain, And cautious drip of higher leaves The lower dips that drip again.-- Above the tangled trees it heaves Its gables and its haunted eaves. One creeper, gnarled and blossomless, O'erforests all its eastern wall; The sighing cedars rake and press Dark boughs along the panes they sprawl; While, where the sun beats, drone and drawl The mud-wasps; and one bushy bee, Gold-dusty, hurls along the hall To buzz into a crack.--To me The shadows seem too seared to flee. Of ragged chimneys martins make Huge pipes of music; twittering, here They build and roost.--My footfalls wake Strange stealing echoes, till I fear I'll see my pale self drawing near, My phantom face as in a glass; Or one, men murdered, buried--where?-- Dim in gray stealthy glimmer, pass With lips that seem to moan 'Alas.' | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...PEARLS OF THE FAITH: 19. AL-FATTA'H by EDWIN ARNOLD AUSTERITY OF POETRY by MATTHEW ARNOLD BLEAKE'S HOUSE IN BLACKMWORE by WILLIAM BARNES THE SENTINEL; TO MY FRIEND by JOSEPH BEAUMONT IN THE COACH by THOMAS EDWARD BROWN LOVE'S REASONS by WILLIAM BROWNE (1591-1643) THE CANTERBURY TALES: THE PRIORESS' TALE by GEOFFREY CHAUCER |