Indian Summer

AT last there came

The sudden fall of frost, when Time

Dreaming through russet September days

Suddenly awoke, and lifting his head, strode

Swiftly forward--made one vast desolating sweep

Of his scythe, then, rapt with the glory

That burned under his feet, fell dreaming again.

And the clouds soared and the crickets sang

In the brief heat of noon; the corn,

So green, grew sere and dry--

  And in the mist the ploughman's team

  Moved silently, as if in dream--

And it was Indian summer on the plain.

Hamlin Garland

In August

  FROM the great trees the locusts cry

  In quavering ecstatic duo--a boy

  Shouts a wild call--a mourning dove

  In the blue distance sobs--the wind

  Wanders by, heavy with odors

  Of corn and wheat and melon vines;

  The trees tremble with delirious joy as the breeze

  Greets them, one by one--now the oak

  Now the great sycamore, now the elm.

And the locusts in brazen chorus, cry

Like stricken things, and the ring-dove's note

Sobs on in the dim distance.

Hamlin Garland

On the Mississippi

THROUGH wild and tangled forests

  The broad, unhasting river flows--

  Spotted with rain-drops, gray with night;

Upon its curving breast there goes

A lonely steamboat's larboard light,

A blood-red star against the shadowy oaks;

Noiseless as a ghost, through greenish gleam

Of fire-flies, before the boat's wild scream--

  A heron flaps away

  Like silence taking flight.

Hamlin Garland

Boyish Sleep

AND all night long we lie in sleep,

  Too sweet to sigh in, or to dream,

Unnoting how the wild winds sweep,

  Or snow clouds through the darkness stream

Above the trees that moan and sign

  And clutch with naked hands the sky.

Beneath the checkered counterpane

  We rest the soundlier for the storm;

Its wrath is only lullaby,

  A far off, vast and dim refrain.

Hamlin Garland

Sport

SOMEWHERE, in deeps

  Of tangled, ripening wheat,

A little prairie-chicken cries--

Lost from its fellows, it pleads and weeps.

Meanwhile, stained and mangled,

  With dust-filled eyes,

The unreplying mother lies

Limp and bloody at the sportsman's feet.

Hamlin Garland