“BELOW THE SUNSET'S RANGE OF ROSE”

Below the sunset's range of rose,

Below the heaven's deepening blue,

Down woodways where the balsam blows,

And milkweed tufts hang, gray with dew,

A Jersey heifer stops and lows —

The cows come home by one, by two.

There is no star yet: but the smell

Of hay and pennyroyal mix

With herb aromas of the dell,

Where the root-hidden cricket clicks:

Among the ironweeds a bell

Clangs near the rail-fenced clover-ricks.

She waits upon the slope beside

The windlassed well the plum trees shade,

The well curb that the goose-plums hide;

Her light hand on the bucket laid,

Unbonneted she waits, glad-eyed,

Her gown as simple as her braid.

She sees fawn-colored backs among

The sumacs now; a tossing horn

Its clashing bell of copper rung:

Long shadows lean upon the corn,

And slow the day dies, scarlet stung,

The cloud in it a rosy thorn.

Below the pleasant moon, that tips

The tree tops of the hillside, fly

The flitting bats; the twilight slips,

In firefly spangles, twinkling by,

Through which he comes: Their happy lips

Meet — and one star leaps in the sky.

He takes her bucket, and they speak

Of married hopes while in the grass

The plum drops glowing as her cheek;

The patient cows look back or pass:

And in the west one golden streak

Burns as if God gazed through a glass.