Clearing

Before the wind, with rain-drowned stocks,
The pleated, crimson hollyhocks
Are bending;
And, smouldering in the breaking brown,
Above the hills that rim the town,
The day is ending.

The air is heavy with the damp;
And, one by one, each cottage lamp
Is lighted;
Infrequent passers of the street
Stroll on or stop to talk or greet,
Benighted.

I look beyond my city yard,
And watch the white moon struggling hard,
Cloud-buried;
The wind is driving toward the east,
A wreck of pearl, all cracked and creased
And serried.

At times the moon, erupting, streaks
Some long cloud, raised in mountain peaks
Of shadow,--
That, seamed with silver, vein on vein,
Grows to a far volcano chain
Of Eldorado.

The wind, that blows from out the hills,
Is like a woman’s touch that stills
A sorrow:
The moon sits high with many a star
In the deep calm: and fair and far
Abides to-morrow.