Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE OLD INN, by MADISON JULIUS CAWEIN


Poetry Explorer

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE OLD INN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Red-winding from the sleepy town
Last Line: With lips that seem to moan 'alas.'


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...
Home: PoetryExplorer.net