Clearing
By Madison Julius Cawein
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.