ISSUE: Autumn 1934
INDIAN SUMMER
Acup too full may give you less Of cordial or of loveliness—
If sustenance you need to get—
Than will this one before you set.
With its few scarlets by a fence,
Together scraped as were they pence,
A field may candle you, and there A cloak out of its rags may spare.
Better than dark a candle end;
A cloak a bitter gust can fend;
But look abroad and look again;
A wider affluence is plain.
Unhindered beauty goes about,
Cockcrow to cockcrow, in and out,
And face to face: once could you see Not any higher than its knee.
Half-hidden from you were that or this—
Sometime a secret is amiss—
Now take this unencumbered air,
And an estate spread everywhere.
There is a small grief in the sun;
A foot must plod now and not run;
A proper staff would not be vain To help you up a country lane.
Here, in the naked and strange grass,
Like a thin splendor in a glass You start from, is one rose gone sere;
And simple, unknown trees are here.
