From leaves of the wind-shaken wood The dew of the dawn is still falling: He is gone from the place where he stood, Just there where the black crow is calling: There is blood on the weeds: is it blood On the face of the man who is crawling?
Red blood or a smudge of the dawn?-- Now he lies with his gray eyes wide, staring, Stiff, still at the sun: he has drawn His limbs in a heap: and the faring Bee-martins light near or pass on, Not one of them knowing or caring.
It is noon: and the wood-dove is deep In the calm of its cooing: and over The tops of the forest trees sweep The shadows of buzzards that hover: Wide-winged they sail on as asleep: And the bob-white is whistling from cover.
It is dusk: and the heat, that made wilt The leaves and the wildflowers’ faces, Gives place to the dew-drops that tilt With coolness the weeds where are traces Of horror and darkness and guilt, That nothing can wash from those places.
It is night: and the hoot-owlet mocks The dove of the day with wild weeping, The Fork is scarce heard on its rocks Where the man is so quietly sleeping: Through the woods snaps the bark of a fox; The lightning is fitfully leaping.
All day, ’twixt hope and fear, She waited at the gate, Looking for him, more dear Now that he made her wait: Day went and night draws near: Stormy it grows and late.
Still, still she waits: great limbs The winds rend from the ridge; Each swollen shallow swims Head-deep below the bridge; The drift, that breaks and brims Swirls lighter than the midge.
The night grows wildly gray With lightning-litten rain; The forests sound and sway, An oak is rent in twain; The thunder rolls away Like some vast bolt and chain.
The Fork is whirling wreck Of field and farm and wood; And many a foaming fleck Drives where the rock-fence stood;-- A torrent sweeps break-neck Above the washed-out blood.
Night deepens: still she waits Expectant in despair: The Fork has reached the gates, The wood’s wreck everywhere. But when the storm abates, She thinks, he will be there.
She sees the lightning rush Its blazing hells above; She hears the thunder crush Heaven as if earthquake-clove-- Loud in the tempest’s hush She calls with all her love.
He comes, she feels; and stands The rushing waters o’er Her feet, and on her hands And hair the wild down-pour, The lightnings are wild brands To light him to her door.