Page:All quiet along the Potomac and other poems.djvu/131

 A NOVEMBER GOOD-NIGHT.

��A NOVEMBER GOOD-NIGHT.

GOOD-NIGHT, little shivering grasses ! Tis idle to struggle and fight With tempest and cruel frost-fingers ; Lie down, little grasses, to-night !

The roses have gone from the garden,

And hidden their faces so fair ; The lilies have never uplifted

Since Frost found them bending in prayer.

The aster and dahlia fought bravely, Till Ice, with his glittering crest,

A diamond dagger laid over

The bloom of each velvety breast.

The leaves of the forest lie faded,

Dry stubble is left after grain ; Yet you, little grasses, still struggle,

Still hope for the soft summer rain.

Nay, nay, even now there is weaving Above you the fleece of. the snow ;

The star-pattern tracks the white shuttle Through the loom of the storm to and fro,

Until over the moor and the mountain Twill lie like a thrice-blessed stole,

And the beggarly rays of November Be made in the day-dawning whole. 11*

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