November

I     The shivering wind sits in the oaks, whose limbs,     Twisted and tortured, nevermore are still;     Grief and decay sit with it; they, whose chill     Autumnal touch makes hectic-red the rims     Of all the oak leaves; desolating, dims     The ageratum's blue that banks the rill;     And splits the milkweed's pod upon the hill,     And shakes it free of the last seed that swims.     Down goes the day despondent to its close:     And now the sunset's hands of copper build     A tower of brass, behind whose burning bars     The day, in fierce, barbarian repose,     Like some imprisoned Inca sits, hate-filled,     Crowned with the gold corymbus of the stars. II     There is a booming in the forest boughs;     Tremendous feet seem trampling through the trees:     The storm is at his wildman revelries,     And earth and heaven echo his carouse.     Night reels with tumult; and, from out her house     Of cloud, the moon looks, - like a face one sees     In nightmare, - hurrying, with pale eyes that freeze     Stooping above with white, malignant brows.     The isolated oak upon the hill,     That seemed, at sunset, in terrific lands     A Titan head black in a sea of blood,     Now seems a monster harp, whose wild strings thrill     To the vast fingering of innumerable hands -     Spirits of tempest and of solitude.