Mnemosyne

Trumbull Stickney

It’s autumn in the country I rememberHow warm a wind blew here about the ways!

And shadows on the hillside lay to slumber

During the long sun-sweetened summer-days.

It’s cold abroad the country I remember.

The swallows veering skimmed the golden grain

At midday with a wing aslant and limber;

And yellow cattle browsed upon the plain

It’s empty down the country I remember.

I had a sister lovely in my sight:

Her hair was dark, her eyes were very sombre;

We sang together in the woods at night.

It’s lonely in the country I remember.

The babble of our children fills my ears,

And on our hearth I stare the perished ember

To flames that show all starry thro’ my tears.

It’s dark about the country I remember.

There are the mountains where I lived. The path

Is slushed with cattle-tracks and fallen timber,

The stumps are twisted by the tempests’ wrath.

But that I knew these places are my own,

I’d ask how came such wretchedness to cumber

The earth, and I to people it alone.

It rains across the country I remember.