Midsummer Abeyance
STRAMONIUM, dank-breathed and sickly-sweet,
Clings in the fields, with heavier scents and vague
That stifle when the sun Peeps forth to plague
The seeding grasses, ripe and parched like wheat.
The air, cast up on writhing waves of heat,
All-impotent to slake each minute’s dearth,
Exhausted seems; the whole sun-frenzied earth
With struggling life o’erburdened and replete.
Clings in the fields, with heavier scents and vague
That stifle when the sun Peeps forth to plague
The seeding grasses, ripe and parched like wheat.
The air, cast up on writhing waves of heat,
All-impotent to slake each minute’s dearth,
Exhausted seems; the whole sun-frenzied earth
With struggling life o’erburdened and replete.
This hour is not Man’s hour; in verity
Each weedling of the earth’s abundancy
Claims ever as of yore its wrested right.
For all thy mind’s indomitable might
It now must yield, — to claim what victory
In the clear stillness of some winter’s night ?
Each weedling of the earth’s abundancy
Claims ever as of yore its wrested right.
For all thy mind’s indomitable might
It now must yield, — to claim what victory
In the clear stillness of some winter’s night ?