LOUD trumpets blow among the naked pines, <br />Fine spun as sere-cloth rent from royal dead. <br />Seen ghostly thro' high-lifted vagrant drifts, <br />Shrill blaring, but no longer loud to moons <br />Like a brown maid of Egypt stands the Earth, <br />Her empty valley palms stretched to the Sun <br />For largesse of his gold. Her mountain tops <br />Still beacon winter with white flame of snow, <br />Fading along his track; her rivers shake <br />Wild manes, and paw their banks as though to flee <br />Their riven fetters. <br /> <br />Lawless is the time, <br />Full of loud kingless voices that way gone: <br />The Polar Caesar striding to the north, <br />Nor yet the sapphire-gated south unfolds <br />For Spring's sweet progress; the winds, unkinged, <br />Reach gusty hands of riot round the brows <br />Of lordly mountains waiting for a lord, <br />And pluck the ragged beards of lonely pines- <br />Watchers on heights for that sweet, hidden king, <br />Bud-crowned and dreaming yet on other shores- <br />And mock their patient waiting. But by night <br />The round Moon falters up a softer sky, <br />Drawn by silver cords of gentler stars <br />Than darted chill flames on the wintry earth. <br /> <br />Within his azure battlements the Sun <br />Regilds his face with joyance, for he sees, <br />From those high towers, Spring, earth's fairest lord, <br />Soft-cradled on the wings of rising swans, <br />With violet eyes slow budding into smiles, <br />And small, bright hands with blossom largesse full, <br />Crowned with an orchard coronal of white, <br />And with a sceptre of a ruddy reed <br />Burnt at its top to amethystine bloom. <br />Come, Lord, thy kingdom stretches barren hands! <br />Come, King, and chain thy rebels to thy throne <br />With tendrils of vine and jewelled links <br />Of ruddy buds pulsating into flower!<br /><br />Isabella Valancy Crawford<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/an-interregnum/
