Omens

Black rooks about the trees
Are circling slow;
Tall elms that can no ease
Nor comfort know,
Since that the Autumn wind
Batters them before, behind,
A bitter breeze unkind.

They call like tongues of dread
Prophesying woe,
Rooks on the sunset red,
Not heeding how
Their clamouring brings near
To a woman the old fear
For her far soldier dear.

That harsh and idle crying
Of mere annoy
Tells her how men are dying,
And how her boy
May lie, his racked thought turning
To the home fire on the hearth burning,
The last agony be learning.