Duncan Campbell Scott

From the Farm on the Hill

 TO A.P.S.

The night wind moves the gloom
In the shadowy basswood;
Mysteriously the leaves sway and sing;
So slow, so tender is the wind,
The slender elm-tree
Is hardly stirred.

The sky is veiled with clouds,
With diaphanous tissue;
Through their dissolving films
The stars shine,
But how infinitely removed;
How inaccessible!

In the distant city
Under the obscure towers
The lights of watchers gleam;
From the dim fields
At intervals in the silence
A cuckoo utters
A distorted cry;
Through the low woods,
Haunted with vain melancholy,
A whip-poor-will wanders,
Forcing his monotonous song.

All the ancient desire
Of the human spirit
Has returned upon me in this hour,
All the wild longing
That cannot be satisfied.
Break, O anguish of nature,
Into some glorious sound!
Let me touch the next circle of being,
For I have compassed this life.