CLEARING

Before the wind, with rain-drowned stocks,

The pleated crimson hollyhocks

Are bending;

And, smouldering in the breaking brown,

Above the hills that edge the town,

The day is ending.

The air is heavy with the damp;

And, one by one, each cottage lamp

Is lighted;

Infrequent passers of the street

Stroll on or stop to talk or greet,

Benighted.

I look beyond my city yard,

And watch the white moon struggling hard,

Cloud-buried;

The wind is driving toward the east,

A wreck of pearl, all cracked and creased

And serried.

At times the moon, erupting, streaks

Some long cloud; like Andean peaks

That double

Horizon-vast volcano chains,

The earthquake scars with lava veins

That bubble.

The wind that blows from out the hills

Is like a woman's touch that stills

A sorrow:

The moon sits high with many a star

In the deep calm: and fair and far

Abides to-morrow.