Beneath the low November sky,

I wandered in the woods, and found

A clearing, where the broken ground

[41]

Was scattered with black stumps and briers,

And the old wreck of forest fires.

It was a bleak and sandy spot,

And, all about, the vacant plot

Was peopled and inhabited

By scores of mulleins long since dead.

A silent and forsaken brood

In that mute opening of the wood,

So shrivelled and so thin they were,

So gray, so haggard, and austere,

Not plants at all they seemed to me,

But rather some spare company

Of hermit folk, who long ago,

Wandering in bodies to and fro,

Had chanced upon this lonely way,

And rested thus, till death one day

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