LAMPMAN, Archibald


In November

The leafless forests slowly yield

To the thick-driving snow. A little while

And night shall darken down. In shouting file

The woodmen's carts go by me homeward-wheeled,

Past the thin fading stubbles, half concealed,

Now golden-gray, sowed softly through with snow,

Where the last ploughman follows still his row,

Turning black furrows through the whitening field.

Far off the village lamps begin to gleam,

Fast drives the snow, and no man comes this way;

The hills grow wintry white, and bleak winds moan

About the naked uplands. I alone

Am neither sad, nor shelterless, nor gray,

Wrapped round with thought, content to watch and dream.


A Forecast

What days await this woman, whose strange feet

Breathe spells, whose presence makes men dream like wine,

Tall, free and slender as the forest pine,

Whose form is moulded music, through whose sweet

Frank eyes I feel the very heart's least beat,

Keen, passionate, full of dreams and fire:

How in the end, and to what man's desire

Shall all this yield, whose lips shall these lips meet?

One thing I know: if he be great and pure,

This love, this fire, this beauty shall endure;

Triumph and hope shall lead him by the palm:

But if not this, some differing thing he be,

That dream shall break in terror; he shall see

The whirlwind ripen, where he sowed the calm.