Swirling blades through inky shades,
And ghostly shadows slipping by;
Clogging beds of arrowheads,
And jagging spruce tops in the sky,

Rasping groans of birchen cones
Re-answering from shore to shore;
Through the hush the snapping brush--
Then silence, and the stars once more.

Mutters slow, appealing, low,
The throaty pleading of the bark;
Roar of might that rends the night--
His body bulking through the dark.

Then the white, cruel tongue of light
Leaps stinging in his startled eyes;
Red and black the night falls back,
The rocking echo drifts and dies.




On the Marshes

Out on the marsh in the misty rain,
The air is full of the harsh refrain;
The long swamps echo the beat of wings;
The birds are back in the reeds again.