Page:Poems, Alan Seeger, 1916.djvu/66

 Still round the turrets of this antique tower

The bougainvillea hangs a crimson crown,

Wistaria-vines and clematis in flower,

Wreathing the lower surface further down,

Hide the old plaster in a very shower

Of motley blossoms like a broidered gown.

Outside, ascending from the garden grove,

A crumbling stairway winds to the one room above.

And whoso mounts by this dismantled stair

Finds the old pleasure-hall, long disarrayed,

Brick-tiled and raftered, and the walls foursquare

Ringed all about with a twofold arcade.

Backward dense branches intercept the glare

Of afternoon with eucalyptus shade;

Eastward the level valley-plains expand,

Sweet as a queen's survey of her own Fairyland.

For through that frame the ivied arches make,

Wide tracts of sunny midland charm the eye,

Frequent with hamlet, grove, and lucent lake

Where the blue hills' inverted contours lie;

Far to the east where billowy mountains break

In surf of snow against a sapphire sky,

Huge thunderheads loom up behind the ranges,

Changing from gold to pink as deepening sunset changes;

16