Stanzas in Love with Life and August
What can this wind do to these August leaves? It folds their ears back on the shaggy bough. Back, back and forward. Rippling weather-vane. Does this, but nothing worse than this, although Juggles them like a wave that jumps upon Seven slower waves to pound apart their foam In a thousand drops for still more later waves To squeeze together in one undertow. Apart, together; apart, together again; Not once in August shall one leaf blow down. Let winds be fiddled by the grass they comb;— What else can winds do to these August leaves? Green ankles, kick as crazy as you choose, For none shall tumble until August does.
A pair of slight tennis shoes is hurrying by in August.
Here's life-besotted, writhing rhododendron, Stretching its sinewy sap in every pore, Drowsy and fierce, like a great carnivore Lunging in one green leap upon the sun. Untamed? Yet all its jungle-grossness fawns Before two passing slight white cotton socks, Disheveled perfume, and a burr-starred smock. For an hour, peace and rage and the music of growth are one.
Is hurrying by in August.
Inexhaustible waterfalls of green splash up Crazily, in dark directions lavished, Rippling through blue veins under cotton blouses A resonance from lutes beneath the loam. Down, death; down like a spaniel; Down, wind; down, she said. For one whole hour nobody can harm a leaf.
Hurrying by in August.
The winds? Can only harm what's pale and outward;— How dark and deep the green of August glows! What can a wind do to an August leaf? For an hour, kick just as crazy as you choose. "But if you hear far unseen apples thud?" What is it to us? Those cannot tug us down, This being August. August, glow slow, glow long.
Hurrying by.
(Vulnerable August, deaf to all but fountains.) She paused. Who hoped and touched? She hurries by. She wears a blouse of cotton summerwhite —(Is it fountains, listen, or the first torn fruit?)— And tennis shoes.
Can you see a thud, can you hear green fading? Glow slowly, holy foliage; apple-red is Unasked for in this lute-fed, loam-thick hour. . . . Another thud; closer. Menace is the name of the small breeze between the leaves. . . . Closer.
Turning-point. A pair of slight tennis shoes hurries by in August.
How dark, how deep the green of August glows! Thinks not of all the death it fed upon. Thinks not of all the life its death will feed. One hour—O deepening foliage, sweep of lawn, Heavy green of August—pause before you're gone. Life-scented, knee-deep-hugging, eerie grass, Good bluegreen spruce, free unpruned hedge and heath, Calm moss, wait long. Glow long enough for us, Petal of the pond-scum, drowner's floating wreath, Whose bees are frogs in emerald flowers. Slow moss, Glow long. Deep-breathing, flush-cheeked August, bleed Your ebb's arterial green in slower tide Back down into the loam you lean upon. We pause as long an hour as August does; Crisscrossed in dark directions overhead, Hot comets hurt each other as they pass; Cold moles grub past each other underneath; All pause as short an hour as August does. Eyes have met eyes while all that green stood still; Though it took but one small breeze to snap that spell,— When eyes pass eyes as dark as August glows, Eyes shall glance backward after August goes.