Chapter XXXV

At daybreak from the woodland come
Echoes of hunting; or the chop
Of some far woodman’s axe, that cleaves
The tingling oak, whose russet leaves
Drop slowly where the white chips drop:
The air is fragrant with the loam,
Where, through the mists of steaming gold,
The sudden sun strikes fold on fold.
Out of the window, filmed with fog,
I look into the wreck which was
The kitchen-garden, drenched with rain;
Among the death I mark again
One blue convolvulus--that draws
A gray vignette along a log,
With pencilled tendrils washed and wan--
The garden-story’s colophon.