H. L. Davis

From “To the River Beach”

THIS CLEAR day almost of winter, the wind runs

The white pigeons wild and helpless; and I go about

Alone in that flood-basin of land which families

Tend all year. Foreign women now harrow it;

All at work who turn green land under; and the furrows

Drawn and raked seem little darker than these faces.

Oh, now I pity old flesh that can not warm itself:

A tail of heavy gray hair whips across the back

Of one stooped, the oldest woman; her thin dress

Like wet cloth, sticks to back and legs in the wind.

These are they who set out wind-breaks of the rods

Of green willows; and now a few are grown branched trees,

That limber when the wind freshens, and spin leaves

Among the stiff dead rods. Pheasants, heavier-breasted

Than pigeons, live about the willows; and quail

Feed in the dead nettles; little birds pick at the grass

Or go as if lost about the white dog-fennel still;

The song of blackbirds comes occasionally from the swale.

It comes so that I remember one whose love

I could not have, and grieved for. Since her death

I have taken to desiring pride of verse instead.

But see how many birds are not yet gone,

Though the frost left them no comfort a month ago;

And the foreign women’s patience, as if for a spirit

Such as my mind sees with heart and eyes and hands

Of that woman who is dead; and upon her wrists

White pigeons bow and delight her. This mind’s a child

Who is whipped, and stands silent for a little while,

Near his mother, wondering if kindness still exist.