STRIFE

The wind fought with the angry trees.

All morning in immense unease

They wrestled, and ruin strawed the ground,

And the north sky frowned.

The oak and aspen arms were held

Defiant, but the death was knelled

Of slender saplings, snappy boughs,

Twigs brittle as men's vows.

How moaned the trees the struggle through!

Anger almost to madness grew.

The aspen screamed, and came a roar

Of the great wind locked in anguish sore,

Desolate with defeat... and then

Quiet fell again:

The trees slept quiet as great cows

That lie at noon under broad boughs.

How pure, how strange the calm; but hist!...

Was it the trees by the wind kissed?

Or from afar, where the wind's hid,

A throb, a sob?