Ridged and bleak the gray forsaken
Twilight at the night has guessed;
And no star of dusk has taken
Flame unshaken in the west.
All day long the woodlands dying
Moaned, and drippings as of grief
Tossed from barren boughs with sighing
Death of flying twig and leaf.
Ah, to live a life unbroken,
Scornful of the worst of fate!
Like that tree... with branches oaken....
Joy's unspoken intimate.—
Who can say that man has never
Lived the life of plants and trees?
Not so wide the lines that sever
Us forever here from these.
Colors, odors, that are cherished,
Haply hint we once were flowers;
Memory alone has perished
In this garished world of ours.
Music,— that all things expresses,
All for which we've loved or sinned,—
Haply in our treey tresses
Once was guesses of the wind....
But I dream!— The dusk, upbraiding,
Deepens without moon or star;
Darkness and my sorrow aiding,
We but fading phantoms are.
And within me doubt keeps saying —
“What is wrong? and what is right?
Hear the cursing! hear the praying!
All are straying on in night.”