Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SACHEM OF THE CLOUDS (A THANKSGIVING LEGEND), by ROBERT FROST



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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SACHEM OF THE CLOUDS (A THANKSGIVING LEGEND), by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: When the sedge upon the meadows crosses, falls and interweaves
Last Line: Hears a shrieking answer speeded from the winter's snowy mouth.
Subject(s): Clouds; Holidays; Thanksgiving Day


When the sedge upon the meadows crosses, falls and interweaves,
Spent, the brook lies wrapt in silence on its bed of autumn leaves;
When the barren fields are moaning, where the Autumn winds rush by,
And the leaves start up in eddies and are whirled athwart the sky;

On the lonely hillside, darkened by the over-hurrying clouds,
Ghostly, stand the withered corn-rows, in their waving moonlight shrouds,
Like the band of those departed, murmuring with discontent,
Come again to tell their sadness, hid in vengeance as they went.

Then the traveler, wending downward from the mountain's fading height,
Deep among the woody marshes, stretching back within the night,
Sees a hermit, grey and feeble, dwarfed beside a giant oak,
Sees the sachem of the storm-cloud, clad about with wreaths of smoke,

Piling high his pyre of hemlocks, weaving spell and crossing limb,
Till a hazy phosphorescence plays around the circle's rim;
All night long, 'mid incantations, hears the wizard's voice arise,
On the bleak wind wildly mingled with the forest's eerie cries.

And when far the flames up-reaching, lurid, gleam upon the vale,
Then the wizard's muttered croaking rises to a piercing wail:
"Come, O come, with storm, come darkness! Speed my clouds on Winter's breath.
All my race is gone before me, all my race is low in death!
Ever, as I ruled a people, shall this smoke arise in cloud;
Ever shall it freight the tempest for the ocean of the proud.
'Thanks!' I hear their cities thanking that my race is low in death,
Come, O come, with storm, come darkness! Speed my clouds on Winter's breath!"

Thus his voice keeps ringing, ringing, till appears the dreary dawn,
And the traveler, looking backward, sees the ashes on the lawn,
Sees the smoke crowd to the hilltops, torn away, and hurried south,
Hears a shrieking answer speeded from the Winter's snowy mouth.





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