The low and healthful breathing of the corn.
Late when the sumach's red was dulled and worn,
And fainter grew the trite and troublous word
Of tristful cricket, that replaced the bird,
I sought the slope, and found a waste forlorn.

Against that cold clear west, whence winter peers,
All spectral stood the bleached stalks thin-leaved,
Dry as papyrus kept a thousand years,
And hissing whispered to the wind that grieved,
_It was a dream--we have no goodly ears--
There was no summer-time--deceived! deceived!_




ISOLATION


White fog around, soft snow beneath the tread,
All sunless, windless, tranced, the morning lay;
All noiseless, trackless, new, the well-known way.
The silence weighed upon the sense; in dread,
"Alone, I am alone," I shuddering said,
"And wander in a region where no ray
Has ever shone, and as on earth's first day
Or last, my kind are not yet born or dead."

Yet not afar, meanwhile, there faltered feet
Like mine, through that wide mystery of the snow,