Quoted By:
Again the sun abandons us, she trundles upward,
Turns so soon and down the west she sinks so quickly!
Daily dimming, she begrudges us her radiance,
Daily longer, shadows yawn and stretch before us.
Winds, in fits and starts, try out their wings and bellow,
Forcing motes of warmth to scatter from their hideouts.
Now the day, no longer tepid, growing chilly,
Stirs old folk to wake and burrow for their sheepskins,
Hustles wife and feebled goodman to the oven,
Badgers those outdoors to slouch back to the cottage
For the warmth of steaming soup and good hot victuals.
Earth, her every corner soggy, blubbers softly
For our wheels slash through her washed-out back.
Before, how smoothly two old horses dragged our load;
Now, with four good horses struggling, we bog down,
Wheel on axle, groaning, gags and, grinding, turns.
Earth, besmirched, is churned and shattered into chunks,
Fields in patches swim and splatter, drowning everywhere,
Rain, splish-splashing, washes down the backs of folks,
Bast shoes, stuffed in shabby boots, soak up the water,
While they stomp and knead foul mud like dough.
Ah, where are you now, you wondrous days of spring,When we, re-opening the windows of the cottage,
Welcomed back your first warm flood of sunshine?
Like a vision which, through sleep, we saw so surely
Yet, on waking, shyly shared and barely mentioned,
That was how the joy of summer passed away...
All that once, in celebrating summer, scurried,
Fluttered through the fields and gaily hopping skittered,
All that, swaying to and fro, rose to the clouds
And joyously came down to share the grain and insect,
All have gone, forsaken us, and fled to hiding.
These old melancholy fields alone remain;
Their loveliness is with us like a sunken grave ...
