IN MONOCHROME 



i,OU come through a world of 

 wailing to a low, strange land 

 of death. The sky drops near 

 and nearer, apall with dun mist 

 that has never a break, a fold ; 

 a hint of rifting to the blue beyond. The 

 wind is a long, keen sighing, not cutting, 

 chilling you to the marrow. Now and again 

 it swells to a sob. Surely Nature hath set 

 herself at penance for the waste, the spoil- 

 ing, of flower and leaf. See the fields wear 

 sackcloth of black, rough stems. What ash- 

 es must lie under, upon, the wide, smooth 

 breast of them, grinding, rasping, till they 

 shiver and cry a fine, faint note in this dun 

 Miserere. 



Nowhere any softness any hint of hope 

 of spring. This land knows never the 

 bloom, the brightness, of it. High summer 

 even is here but a sun -bright gray-green 

 ghost, compact of thick, dark leafage, of 

 dim, slant shining through dusk boles to 



