Poems Author:William Dean Howells Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: IN AUGUST. ALL the long August afternoon, The little drowsy stream Whispers a melancholy tune, As if it dreamed of June And whispered in its dream. The... more » thistles show beyond the brook Dust on their down and bloom, And out of many a weed-grown nook The aster-flowers look With eyes of tender gloom. The silent orchard aisles are sweet With smell of ripening fruit. Through the sere grass, in shy retreat Flutter, at coming feet, The robins strange and mute. There is no wind to stir the leaves, The harsh leaves overhead; Only the querulous cricket grieves, And shrilling locust weaves A song of Summer dead. THE EMPTY HOUSE. THE wet trees hang above the walks Purple with damps and earthish stains, And strewn by moody, absent rains With rose-leaves from the wild-grown stalks. Unmown, in heavy, tangled swaths, The ripe June-grass is wanton blown; Snails slime the untrodden threshold-stone; Along the sills hang drowsy moths. Down the blank visage of the wall, Where many a wavering trace appears, Like a forgotten trace of tears, From swollen eaves the slow drops crawl. Where everything was wide before, The curious wind, that comes and goes, Finds all the latticed windows close, Secret and close the bolted door. And with the shrewd and curious wind, That in the arched doorway cries, And at the bolted portal tries, And harks and listens at the blind, — Forever lurks my thought about, And in the ghostly middle-night Finds all the hidden windows bright, And sees the guests go in and out, And lingers till the pallid dawn, And feels the mystery deeper there In silent, gust-swept chambers, bare, With all the midnight revel gone; But wanders through the lonesome rooms, Where harsh the astonished cric...« less