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Voice on the Wind, and Other Poems

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<h2>TO THE LOCUST</h2> <div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> Thou pulse of hotness, who, with reed-like breast, Makest meridian music, long and loud, Accentuating summer!—dost thy best To make the sunbeams fiercer, and to crowd With lonesomeness the long, close afternoon When Labor leans, swart-faced and beady browed, Upon his sultry scythe—thou tangible tune Of heat, whose waves incessantly arise Quivering and clear beneath the cloudless skies. </div> <div class="stanza"> Thou singest, and upon his haggard hills Drouth yawns and rubs his heavy eyes and wakes; Brushes the hot hair from his face; and fills The land with death as sullenly he takes Downward his dusty way: 'midst woods and fields At every pool his burning thirst he slakes: No grove so deep, no bank so high it shields A spring from him; no creek evades his eye; He needs but look and they are withered dry. </div> <div class="stanza"> Thou singest, and thy song is as a spell Of somnolence to charm the land with sleep; A thorn of sound that pierces dale and dell, Diffusing slumber over vale and steep. [Pg 37] Diffusing slumber over vale and steep. Sleepy the forest, nodding sleepy boughs; The pastures sleepy with their sleepy sheep; Sleepy the creek where sleepily the cows Stand knee-deep: and the very heaven seems Sleepy and lost in undetermined dreams. </div> <div class="stanza"> Art thou a rattle that Monotony, Summer's dull nurse, old sister of slow Time, Shakes for Day's peevish pleasure, who in glee Takes its discordant music for sweet rhyme? Or oboe that the Summer Noontide plays, Sitting with Ripeness 'neath the orchard-tree, Trying repeatedly the same shrill phrase, Until the musky peach with drowsiness Drops, and the hum of bees grows less and less? </div> </div> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> [Pg 38] <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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