Under the green curling world of leaves
sleek-bosomed Summer sprawls upon the grass,
dreaming of brazen noons and twinkling eves
and the bright pageant of the days that pass.
A little time she sleeps; then, waking, flies,
as Autumn, clutching a sheaf of scarlet dawns
and rainy dusks, comes tramping through the trees
and strews her blood-red leaves upon the lawns.
A little and the old hag Winter comes
page 205 holding her white fang'd pack on straining leash
in grim restraint.
                        Then suddenly the drums
roll out across the world, the trumpets flash,
and, loosed from the bonds of her gigantic birth,
Spring carves her flaming legend on the earth.