Bare Boughs

O heart,-that beat the bird's blithe blood, The blithe bird's strain, and understood The song it sang to leaf and bud,- What dost thou in the wood? O soul,-that kept the brook's glad flow, The glad brook's word to sun and moon,- What dost thou here where song lies low, And dead the dreams of June? Where once was heard a voice of song, The hautboys of the mad winds sing; Where once a music flowed along, The rain's wild bugle's ring. The weedy water frets and ails, And moans in many a sunless fall; And, o'er the melancholy, trails The black crow's eldritch call. Unhappy brook! O withered wood! O days, whom Death makes comrades of! Where are the birds that thrilled the blood When Life struck hands with Love? A song, one soared against the blue; A song, one silvered in the leaves; A song, one blew where orchards grew Gold-appled to the eaves. The birds are flown; the flowers, dead; And sky and earth are bleak and gray: Where Joy once went, all light of tread, Grief haunts the leaf-wild way.