August Wind / Margaret Deland

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