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Voice on the Wind, and Other Poems

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<h2>EVENING ON THE FARM</h2> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> From out the hills, where twilight stands, Above the shadowy pasture lands, With strained and strident cry, Beneath pale skies that sunset bands, The bull-bats fly. </div> <div class="stanza"> A cloud hangs over, strange of shape, And, colored like the half-ripe grape, Seems some uneven stain On heaven's azure, thin as crape, And blue as rain. </div> <div class="stanza"> By ways, that sunset's sardonyx O'erflares, and gates the farmboy clicks, Through which the cattle came, The mullein stalks seem giant wicks Of downy flame. </div> <div class="stanza"> From woods no glimmer enters in, Above the streams that wandering win From out the violet hills, Those haunters of the dusk begin, The whippoorwills. </div> <div class="stanza"> [Pg 25] Adown the dark the firefly marks Its flight in golden-emerald sparks; And, loosened from his chain, The shaggy watchdog bounds and barks, And barks again. </div> <div class="stanza"> Each breeze brings scents of hill-heaped hay; And now an owlet, far away, Cries twice or thrice, "Twohoo;" And cool dim moths of mottled gray Flit through the dew. </div> <div class="stanza"> The silence sounds its frog-bassoon, Where on the woodland creek's lagoon, Pale as a ghostly girl Lost 'mid the trees, looks down the moon With face of pearl. </div> <div class="stanza"> Within the shed where logs, late hewed, Smell forest-sweet, and chips of wood Make blurs of white and brown, The brood-hen cuddles her warm brood Of teetering down. </div> <div class="stanza"> The clattering guineas in the tree Din for a time; and quietly The henhouse, near the fence, Sleeps, save for some brief rivalry Of cocks and hens. </div> <div class="stanza"> [Pg 26] A cow-bell tinkles by the rails, Where, streaming white in foaming pails, Milk makes an uddery sound; While overhead the black bat trails Around and 'round. </div> <div class="stanza"> The night is still. The slow cows chew A drowsy cud. The bird that flew And sang is in its nest. It is the time of falling dew, Of dreams and rest. </div> <div class="stanza"> The brown bees sleep; and 'round the walk, The garden path, from stalk to stalk The bungling beetle booms, Where two soft shadows stand and talk Among the blooms. </div> <div class="stanza"> The stars are thick: the light is dead That dyed the West: and Drowsyhead, Tuning his cricket-pipe, Nods, and some apple, round and red, Drops over ripe. </div> <div class="stanza"> Now down the road, that shambles by, A window, shining like an eye Through climbing rose and gourd, Shows where Toil sups and these things lie, His heart and hoard. </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 27] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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