Sunday, October 16, 2005

R. Frost

A Late Walk

when i go up through the mowing field,
the headless aftermath,
smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew,
half closed the garden path.

and when i come to the garden ground,
the whir of sober birds
up from the tangle of whithered weeds
is sadder than any words.

a tree beside the wall stands bare,
but a leaf that lingured brown,
disturbed, i doubt not, by my thought,
comes softly rattling down.

i end not far from my going forth,
by picking the faded blue
of the last remaining aster flower
to carry again to you.


Reluctance

out through the fields and the woods
and over the walls i have wended;
i have climbed the hills of view
and looked at the world, and descended;
i have come by the highway home,
and lo, it is ended.

the leaves are all dead on the ground,
save those the oak is keeping
to ravel them one by one
and let them go scraping and creeping
out over the crusted snow,
when others are sleeping.

and the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
no longer blown hither and thither;
the last lone aster is gone;
the flowers of with hazel wither;
the heart is still aching to seek,
but the feet question "whither?"

ah, when to the heart of man
was it ever less than treason
to go with the drift of things,
to yield with grace to reason,
and bow and accept the end
of love or a season?