Bare Boughs

O heart, - that beat the bird's blithe blood,     The blithe bird's strain, and understood     The song it sang to leaf and bud, -     What dost thou in the wood?     O soul, - that kept the brook's glad flow,     The glad brook's word to sun and moon, -     What dost thou here where song lies low,     And dead the dreams of June?     Where once was heard a voice of song,     The hautboys of the mad winds sing;     Where once a music flowed along,     The rain's wild bugle's ring.     The weedy water frets and ails,     And moans in many a sunless fall;     And, o'er the melancholy, trails     The black crow's eldritch call.     Unhappy brook! O withered wood!     O days, whom Death makes comrades of!     Where are the birds that thrilled the blood     When Life struck hands with Love?     A song, one soared against the blue;     A song, one silvered in the leaves;     A song, one blew where orchards grew     Gold-appled to the eaves.     The birds are flown; the flowers, dead;     And sky and earth are bleak and gray:     Where Joy once went, all light of tread,     Grief haunts the leaf-wild way.