August Wind
The sharp wind cut a pathway through the cloud,
And left a track of faintly shining blue;
The nunlike poplars swayed and bowed,
And low the swallows flew!
The sudden dust whirled up the stony road,
And blurred the brightness of the golden-rod;
The ripening milk-weed bent, and sowed
Winged seeds at every nod;
Backward the maple tossed her feathery crown,
Then flung her branches on the streaming air;
The brittle oak-leaves, dry and brown,
Rustled with break and tear!
Each wayside weed was twisted like a thread;
Then, suddenly, far up the pasture hill,
Quick as it came the gust had fled,
And all the fields were still.
~~
Margaret Deland (1857-1945)
from The Old Garden, and other verses, 1889
[Poem is in the public domain in Canada, the United States, and the European Union]
Margaret Deland biography
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