Classic Poem

Half under the flood are the trees by the river,
The wind is not happy,
The branches shiver,
The dark ice-floes are scurrying down
Like heaps of heavy death.
The hills brown-hazed, with the trees tremble,
The sun is dazed
And the clouds dissemble.
Spent is my trust, and longings rust
My heart with every breath.

Half under the flood are the trees—and in them
Crows that scold
At the skies and din them.
Worn is the wind and writhen the waves
With the trouble of tales he tells.
A skiff unmoored from the cove is skirling,
Oarless and aimless,
Mutely whirling—
Even as thoughts, unmoored in me,
On a tide that mystery swells.

Half under the floods are the trees—and bushes
Drowned deep
In the drift that pushes.
Out of them whirrs, migrant again,
The wild duck's watery wing.
‘Swift to the South!’ my heart cries after
Her strained flight
With strained laughter.
For I am chilled, I am winter-filled,
An exile far from the Spring!