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From “To the River Beach”
THIS CLEAR day almost of winter, the wind runs | |
| The white pigeons wild and helpless; and I go about | |
| Alone in that flood-basin of land which families | |
| Tend all year. Foreign women now harrow it; | |
| All at work who turn green land under; and the furrows | 5 |
| Drawn and raked seem little darker than these faces. | |
| Oh, now I pity old flesh that can not warm itself: | |
| A tail of heavy gray hair whips across the back | |
| Of one stooped, the oldest woman; her thin dress | |
| Like wet cloth, sticks to back and legs in the wind. | 10 |
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| These are they who set out wind-breaks of the rods | |
| Of green willows; and now a few are grown branched trees, | |
| That limber when the wind freshens, and spin leaves | |
| Among the stiff dead rods. Pheasants, heavier-breasted | |
| Than pigeons, live about the willows; and quail | 15 |
| Feed in the dead nettles; little birds pick at the grass | |
| Or go as if lost about the white dog-fennel still; | |
| The song of blackbirds comes occasionally from the swale. | |
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| It comes so that I remember one whose love | |
| I could not have, and grieved for. Since her death | 20 |
| I have taken to desiring pride of verse instead. | |
| But see how many birds are not yet gone, | |
| Though the frost left them no comfort a month ago; | |
| And the foreign women’s patience, as if for a spirit | |
| Such as my mind sees with heart and eyes and hands | 25 |
| Of that woman who is dead; and upon her wrists | |
| White pigeons bow and delight her. This mind’s a child | |
| Who is whipped, and stands silent for a little while, | |
| Near his mother, wondering if kindness still exist. | |
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