Impressions / Beatrice Redpath

Impressions

Early Snow

The leaves hung black,
Limp blossoms without scent
Drooped pitifully;
But in the night the earth has laid
White sheets above its dead.


Illusion

In my garden to-night
The trees seem heavy with snow,
And tiny candles are alight
On every bough;
But I smell apple blossoms,
And the wings of a firefly
Touched my hand.


Before the Storm

Heat . . . tenseness and heat,
The sky seems stretched too tight,
While massed grey clouds
Are as packed feathers holding back the air.


Winter

The little houses crouch under the drifted snow,
Their windows like small bright eyes
Blinking into the sunlight.

~~
Beatrice Redpath (1886-1937)
from White Lilac, 1922

[Poems are in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]

Beatrice Redpath biography