Dirge    October 1908

 

When the wild winds wring the withered leaves

From the nigh nude branches of the roadside trees.

And whirls them lie affrighted chicks before it’s blast

Across the fields and fences till at last.

They’re lost in the gray smoky haze that lurks

Along the fringe of yonder woods where the white trunks of the birch

Sway in the spectral silence swinging in the gloom.

Before the blasts that blight their summer bloom

When winds in the wintering woods wail [weirdly] April 11, 1928