IThe Trumpet-Vine ArbourThe throats of the little red trumpet-flowers are wide open,And the clangour of brass1 beats against the hot sunlight.They bray2 and blare at the burning sky.Red! Red! Coarse notes of red,Trumpeted at the blue sky.In long streaks3 of sound, molten metal,The vine declares itself.Clang! -- from its red and yellow trumpets4.Clang! -- from its long, nasal trumpets,Splitting the sunlight into ribbons, tattered5 and shot with noise.I sit in the cool arbour, in a green-and-gold twilight6.It is very still, for I cannot hear the trumpets,I only know that they are red and open,And that the sun above the arbour shakes with heat.My quill7 is newly mended,And makes fine-drawn lines with its point.Down the long, white paper it makes little lines,Just lines -- up -- down -- criss-cross.My heart is strained out at the pin-point of my quill;It is thin and writhing8 like the marks of the pen.My hand marches to a squeaky tune,It marches down the paper to a squealing9 of fifes.My pen and the trumpet-flowers,And Washington's armies away over the smoke-tree to the Southwest."Yankee Doodle," my Darling! It is you against the British,Marching in your ragged10 shoes to batter11 down King George.What have you got in your hat? Not a feather, I wager12.Just a hay-straw, for it is the harvest you are fighting for.Hay in your hat, and the whites of their eyes for a target!Like Bunker Hill, two years ago, when I watched all day from the house-topThrough Father's spy-glass.The red city, and the blue, bright water,And puffs13 of smoke which you made.Twenty miles away,Round by Cambridge, or over the Neck,But the smoke was white -- white!To-day the trumpet-flowers are red -- red --And I cannot see you fighting,But old Mr. Dimond has fled to Canada,And Myra sings "Yankee Doodle" at her milking.The red throats of the trumpets bray and clang in the sunshine,And the smoke-tree puffs dun blossoms into the blue air.IIThe City of Falling LeavesLeaves fall,Brown leaves,Yellow leaves streaked14 with brown.They fall,Flutter,Fall again.The brown leaves,And the streaked yellow leaves,Loosen on their branchesAnd drift slowly downwards15.One,One, two, three,One, two, five.All Venice is a falling of Autumn leaves --Brown,And yellow streaked with brown."That sonnet16, Abate17,Beautiful,I am quite exhauste
