Alfred H. Miles, ed. Women Poets of the Nineteenth Century. 1907.
By Key Notes (1879). II. AfternoonLouisa S. Guggenberger (18451895)
P
Fleecy, sun-extinguished moon,
I am here alone, and ponder
On the theme of Afternoon.
And what fits it is: no more.
Waves before the wind are weighty;
Strongest sea-beats shape the shore.
And the Possible is free;
’Tis by being, not by effort,
That the firm cliff juts to sea.
Drifts the Fact before the “Law”;
So we name the ordered sequence
We, remembering, foresaw.
Of the forcible and fit;
Calm of uncontested Being,
And our thought that comes of it.
Lies the Afternoon at ease,
Little willing ripples answer
To a drift of casual breeze.
Ebbing tide, and fleecy moon!
In the “line of least resistance,”
Flows the life of Afternoon.