Thistle-drift Author:John Vance Cheney 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: SUMMER RAIN. Tj'IRSTLINGS of the summer rain, Tapping at my window-pane, Welcome, little hearts of air, Beating, beating, beating there. Nay, look not s... more »o timid through. Sure, the world's at home to you : Every lily, every rose, Well your gentle knocking knows.- Open, rose and lily cup, Fill each passioned chalice up ; Sweetly lovers from the sky On the breasts of blossoms lie. THE GOING OF AUTUMN. "CLEAR the storm-mottled rock, and brittle the brake, Plump-cropt is the cock, and denned is the snake ; Newly furred is the hare, the marmot's abed, Asleep is the bear, the lizard as dead ; There's a howl on the hill, a moan on the plain, A film on the rill, a flake on the rain ; There is death in the, day, a treacherous sun, A season grown gray—an Autumn undone. THE GOING OF A UTUMN. Autumn passes— she takes, to-day, Her bleak and solitary way : Old ocean feels it, on the sand Reaching, reaching a parting hand. As sings that bird where no eye sees, Half-fearing its own melodies, The brook, slow northward toward the snows, Bubbling his little trouble, goes. In naked woodlands of the vale, A thousand voices utter wail ; Far on the mountain, high and bare, A thousand voices answer there. Lorn branches beckon, strained in space, Death-pale the field's beseeching face ; Shrunk fruits drop sudden to the ground— A gray shape waits on yonder mound. SNOWFLAKES. TALLING all the night-time, Falling all the day, Silent into silence, From the far-away,— Never came like glory To the April leas, Never summer blossoms Thick and white as these. Falling all the night-time, Falling all the day. Stilly as the spirits Come from far away,— SNOWFLAKES. Snowflakes, winged snowflakes, Fancy, following, sees Souls of f...« less