Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, NOVEMBER NIGHT, by BERNICE LESBIA KENYON


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

NOVEMBER NIGHT, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Winds in the night pass fitfully, destroying
Last Line: Down through the darkness over the fallen leaves.
Alternate Author Name(s): Gilkyson, Walter, Mrs.
Subject(s): Night; Peace; Bedtime


WINDS in the night pass fitfully, destroying
Silence before them. Peace in the darkened woods
Falls at the sound of scattered leaves, or the rustle
Of long bent grasses—the ghostly fiddle-scraping,
Dark and disturbed, of crisp and hardened sedge;
The snap and crackle of twigs in piles of brush,
As if a creature of shadow trod them under,
Pressing them down among stiff crinkled leaves.
Everywhere the winds move, humming in branches,
Shuddering through the pliant stems of birch,
Making the darkness alive with stranger creatures.

As if these were the last winds in the world,
And other nights held only a frozen stillness,
Tense I must stand and listen, leaning against
The chill of the night; almost unbreathing, I wait,
Straining my ears for the distant rush of sound,
For the gust of wind, and footsteps running after,
Down through the darkness over the fallen leaves.





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