Transformed
A battered thing it seems
That salt encrusted drift wood, but the skies
Showed never rainbow with more gorgeous dyes
Than gild that firelight’s beams.
The cloud banks dull and grey
Far in the west, are but a canvas spread
For supernatural scenes in gold and red
When ends the dying day.
The icy Frost King lays
His finger on the leaves and lo, the fires
Of fairy land on autumn’s funeral pyres
Seem everywhere ablaze.
And so each inner trace
Of life’s deep grief and cankered bitterness
Is graven in those lines of kindliness
Upon an aged face.