LET us not further trespass down this lane Since now the trees will feel a leathern tread Over their hidden feet, and silenced Will know we are not centaurs come again. A moment past, and they perhaps had seen In our slow-moving shadows, only those, So rapt were they in sound, they might have been With shouting autumn seas where no man knows. But now the weald is very still; above, That quadrature of limbs like twisted bars, Has scarcely moved, since last the great wind drove Its Viking song beneath the candent stars. So thunderous a force, it seemed the downs Would crumble in its passing, and be gone When we who loved them, in our orisons, Looked southward for their silhouette at dawn. Familiar winds there are, as shepherds know, That wheel above the southdown flocks at noon, And those that in the twilight come and go, In deep-cleft lanes a-gossip with the moon. But this was alien, and its frenzy stirred Our stoic trees to clamorous unrest, Pelting this sky with some barbaric word That seemed half battle-slogan and half jest. But even now it passes Finisterre; Now are its voices strident over Spain. Let us return: the land is quiet here, And over us the constellations wane. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ANOTHER SONG WITHOUT WORDS by PAUL VERLAINE WAR IS KIND: 23 by STEPHEN CRANE NICHOLAS NYE by WALTER JOHN DE LA MARE HASTE NOT! REST NOT! by JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE THE SEA GYPSY [OR GIPSY] by RICHARD HOVEY BALLADE OF BROKEN FLUTES by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON VETERAN SIRENS by EDWIN ARLINGTON ROBINSON |