The Deserted Homestead

The wind is desolate in the fields;

And round the house at night

The autumn smoulder of decay

Creeps like a blight.

His standing corn with mildew rusts

Forsaken on the hill.

The wild will cover up the road

Now his hands are still.

Only a sparrow, like a leaf,

Skips along the eaves,

Half lonely for a human voice

In the hush of leaves.

This ending that is old as earth

Sorrow cannot break.

Our doors are open to the wind,

And the wind will take.

The jeweled phrase is worthless here.

The blackbird and the crow,

Bleak criers over windswept land,

Alone may sow

Dark syllables across the wind;

Or, in the ruined field,

Deride the hackneyed misery-

Earth's only yield.

Loren C. Eiseley

THE WEAVERS

With web on ceiling and web on wall,

The shawls of the weavers shadow the hall,

And the weavers people the quiet spaces.

From door ajar to the lintel bar,

And back again to the hinge, the traces

Of corded silk make a woven star.

Thin-shinned those olden spinners are,

All squat from sitting at the loom;

And, in the twilight, or the gloom

Of rain without, if one brought light

To live in that too-silent spot,

The spinners' eyes would glow as hot

As red-rimmed coals, with little sight

From peering long at webs pulled tight.

And if anyone should call and call,