Sorting through a few of my Dropbox files this evening. Hope you enjoy this verse:
Snow
By Canadian poet Archibald Lampman
White are the far-off plains, and white The fading forests grow; The wind dies out along the height, And denser still the snow, A gathering weight on roof and tree, Falls down scarce audibly.
The road before me smooths and fills Apace, and all about The fences dwindle, and the hills Are blotted slowly out; The naked trees loom spectrally Into the dim white sky.
The meadows and far-sheeted streams Lie still without a sound; Like some soft minister of dreams The snow-fall hoods me round; In wood and water, earth and air, A silence everywhere.
Save when at lonely intervals Some farmer’s sleigh, urged on, With rustling runners and sharp bells, Swings by me and is gone; Or from the empty waste I hear A sound remote and clear;
The barking of a dog, or call To cattle, sharply pealed, Borne echoing from some wayside stall Or barnyard far a-field; Then all is silent, and the snow Falls, settling soft and slow.
The evening deepens, and the gray Folds closer earth and sky; The world seems shrouded far away; Its noises sleep, and I, As secret as yon buried stream, Plod dumbly on, and dream.
The Ragtag Daily Prompt this morning was SETTLE and it’s taken me awhile to settle down and respond to it. Actually, for my response I’m going to publish a poem by Canadian poet Archibald Lampman.
EVENING
From upland slopes I see the cows file by,
Lowing, great-chested,down the homeward trail,
By dusking fields and meadows shining pale
With moon-tipped dandelions. Flickering high,
A peevish night-hawk in the western sky
Beats up into the lucent solitudes,
Or drops with gliding wing. The stilly woods
Grow dark and deep,and gloom mysteriously.
Cool night winds creepand whisper in mine ear.
The homely cricket gossips at my feet.
From far-off pools and wastes of reeds I hear,
Clear and soft-piped, the chanting frogsbreak sweetIn full Pandean chorus. One by one
Shine out the starsand the great night comes on.
I’m slowly getting used to the new editor. Some features I really like — one of them being the wide color range I can use for my type. Another is this Subscript. I sometimes tried using the tiniest font in the Classic editor, but it didn’t seem to make much difference to the size — not like this.
Here’s my response to Crimson’s Creative Challenge #40. A bit of nonsense maybe, but I had fun imagining where this trail might take a person. 🙂
Can This Be The Yellow Brick Road?
“You need to follow the yellow brick road,” someone told me. “That’s where your dreams will all come true.”
I googled yellow brick road and it brought up an album by Elton John. It appears his dream has come true, but I was actually hoping for a successful career on Wall Street.
So I programmed the navigation system in my car for “yellow brick road” and followed the voice carefully. However, when the synthetic lady told me to head west on County Road #64, a narrow lane, I got a bit nervous. What kind of career awaits me out here in the boonies?
I abandoned the car when the country road morphed into Shady Trail. After a thirty-minute hike I’m seeing a shining path ahead, but it doesn’t look like yellow bricks. Still, I kind of like the peace and quiet here. Perhaps I’ll become a famous naturalist.