Page:Anthology of Magazine Verse (1921).djvu/145

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AFTER STORM
Was there a wind?
Tap . . . . . tap . . .
Night pads upon the snow
With moccasined feet,
And it is still . . . . so still . . .
An eagle's feather
Might fall like a stone.

Could there have been a storm,
Mad-tossing golden mane
     on the neck of the wind—
Tearing up the sky,
     loose-flapping like a tent
     about the ice-capped stars?

Cool, sheer and motionless,
The frosted pines
Are jewelled with a million flaming points,
That fling their beauty up in long white sheaves
Till they catch hands with stars.
Could there have been a wind
That haled them by the hair,
And blinding
Blue-forked
Flowers of the lightning
In their leaves?

Tap . . . . tap . . .
Slow-ticking centuries . . .
Soft as bare feet upon the snow . . .
Faint . . . . lulling as heard rain
     upon heaped leaves . . .
So silence builds her wall
     about a dream impaled.

Poetry, A Magazine of VerseLola Ridge

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