The Cool Change

FOR day on day an avid sun had drawn
Life-giving dews from leaf and frond and field;
Grey lay the grass upon the wilted lawn;
Gone half the garden’s glorious floral yield.
No cloud was there to shield
Green things from those fierce rays that came with dawn
That Summer’s flying, stinging pests might spawn.
Bees droned, cicadas reeled.

Now, suddenly, from out a northern hill
A savage wind tears all the forest thro’,
Tossing and tugging at the trees until
The green mass seems to boil — a witch’s brew
Not for a moment still.
Now the wind drops as sudden as it grew,
And all things wait, as if wise Nature knew
What next the gods should will.

Now, in the west, a black cloud lifts its head,
And, faint at first, a distant muttering breaks.
Chill and spasmodic little winds are sped
Down the still forest that once more awakes,
And all this green world takes
A saffron tinge. And, as the black clouds spread
Up to the zenith, comes a flash of red —
A crash — and all earth shakes.

Still gathered up, the turmoil holds aloof
A breath, then thunder crashes down the sky,
And, like some mighty herd on galloping hoof,
A far-off murmur waxes from a sigh
Into a wild, fierce cry
From tortured storm-wrack, like the weft and woof
Of God’s great loom; and, drumming on the roof,
The deluge dashes by.