For 

 AMY LOVEMAN 



Tlie Minstrel Made His Tune 

 of Hours and Seasons 



Dew/all, moonrise, high sweet clover, 

 Chimney swifts at their twilight play; 



Quail call, owl hoot, moth a-kover r 

 Midnight pale at the step of day, 



Star wane, cobweb, brown-plumed bracken; 



Morning laughs, with the frost in flower; 

 Duck flight, hound cry; wild grapes blacken. 



Day leaps up at the amber hour. 



Sun dark, snowcloud, eaves ice cumbered, 

 Gray sand piled on a carmine West; 



Faint wing, flake dance; winds unnumbered 

 Swing the cradles where leaf-buds rest. 



Wide light, bough flush, gold-fringed meadows, 



Berries red in the rippled grass; 

 Stream song, nest note, dream deep shadows 



Drawn back slowly for noon to pass. 



