Classic Poem

I — BLUE AND SILVER

The clouds are flying, white horse-tails,
The fierce little moon is a silver gadfly,
The wind is a whistling silver whip:
Gallop, gallop, wild white stallions,
Whinnying silverly,
Across the cold blue valleys,
Over the crystal hills!

II — ROSE AND GREY

Fiery roses hang from the grey cloud-bushes,
Loosely, ready to shatter —
Great flame-roses above the cold earth.
I hold my breath lest the sharp black branches of the old oak
Catch them and tear them,
Shake and scatter their ragged petals,
And shorten by a heart-beat
Their unseasonable blooming.

III — PALE PINK AND PRIMROSE

On a knoll in the old fallow field,
Dressed in the tawny-grey of dead grasses,
Three little pines in short skirts stand together,
Like little girls in party-dresses;
While, to make them clap their hands,
The clouds beyond them prink and pencil themselves with delicate fairy tints,
Such as little girls love.

IV — CLEAR GOLD

The hem of the grey Dusk is of ember-red velvet;
The bare trees brush against it like thin black feathers;
The windows of the houses are square pendants of topaz
Muffled in veils of blue;
And high above this blending of dim splendors —
A flower for Her hair —
The bright bent moon sprays a delicate, raying light,
Like the heart of a water-lily, clear gold.