O heart,-that beat the bird's blithe blood, <br />The blithe bird's strain, and understood <br />The song it sang to leaf and bud,- <br />What dost thou in the wood? <br /> <br />O soul,-that kept the brook's glad flow, <br />The glad brook's word to sun and moon,- <br />What dost thou here where song lies low, <br />And dead the dreams of June? <br /> <br />Where once was heard a voice of song, <br />The hautboys of the mad winds sing; <br />Where once a music flowed along, <br />The rain's wild bugle's ring. <br /> <br />The weedy water frets and ails, <br />And moans in many a sunless fall; <br />And, o'er the melancholy, trails <br />The black crow's eldritch call. <br /> <br />Unhappy brook! O withered wood! <br />O days, whom Death makes comrades of! <br />Where are the birds that thrilled the blood <br />When Life struck hands with Love? <br /> <br />A song, one soared against the blue; <br />A song, one silvered in the leaves; <br />A song, one blew where orchards grew <br />Gold-appled to the eaves. <br /> <br />The birds are flown; the flowers, dead; <br />And sky and earth are bleak and gray: <br />Where Joy once went, all light of tread, <br />Grief haunts the leaf-wild way.<br /><br />Madison Julius Cawein<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/bare-boughs/
