Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/613

 1850-60.] ALBERT SUTLIFFE, 597 The quavering songster ceases its employ ; The aspen is not stirred. But Nature hath no pause ; she toileth still ; Above the last-year leaves Thrusts the lithe germ, and o'er the ter- raced hill A fresher carpet weaves. From many veins she sends her gathered streams To the huge-billowed main, Then through the air, impalpable as dreams. She calls them back again. She shakes the dew from her ambrosial locks, She pours adown the steep The thundering waters ; in her palm, she rocks The flower-throned bee to sleep. Smile in the tempest, faint and fragile man. And tremble in the calm ! God plainest shows what great Jehovah can. In these fair days of balm. JUNE. The livelong day, this summer weather, Chased by the zephyr fleet, The light and the shadow go together Over the browning wheat. And after the staring daytime closes, Passionless, white, and high. The moon peeps into the elvish roses, Out of her native sky. Under the hill where the sun shines dimmer, Shrunk from the eager beam. The brook goes on, with a fitful glimmer. And music for a dream. Over the groves and moistened meadows The steady gray hawks wing, And down below, in the shifting shadows, The merry small birds sing. My tired foot, from the broad sun going, Presseth the curling moss, And my eye doth see, 'mid the green leaves showing. The fair clouds flit across. OCTOBER. Now the middle autumn days, 'Neath a blue luxurious sky, Over woods and traveled ways, With their golden glories lie. Now the oak that stands afield, Royal on a dais brown, Shows its kingly purple shield Like the jewels of a crown. In the late September rains Dark the night and dim the day ; Rings of mist shut in the plains, And the dawns were sad and gray. But the sunlight drove the shades Over hill and over stream, Far into the stillest glades. Where the owlets dream and dream. Where the blue sky stoopeth down, It hath won a golden edge. O'er the corn-fields square and brown, With their line of crimson hedge. Plainly heard, the pheasant's drum Falleth through the air of morn ;