Two Fishers, and Other Poems

And over us a sound of humming --Of hornets or bad bees a-bumming! A devilish, strident, hoarse, discordant Whirring of dark fliers mordant. My soul stands still and sweats with fear.

But the Heavenly stars, all shimmering, Dance in a giddy whirl and sing. And other stars, of the Earth, shake sheer From the mouths of the black guns thundering.

'Tis like some ruining harmony I heard in Berlin on the Spree The day they played the Valkyrie.

Kind Heaven will comfort my wracked wits Before I'm blown to little bits.

SICKNESS IN WINTER

Once as I on sick-bed lay I woke crying for my mother. But she was eight hundred miles away, Leagues and leagues of sea between, And the land all frozen hard and gray.

She was so very old, I ween She could not have moved a mile that day; For the land was frozen stiff and gray, And the menacing seas rolled all between.

NATURE IN WAR-TIME

If flowers could speak And leav