The Bracelet Of Grass

 

The opal heart of afternoon

Was clouding on to throbs of storm,

Ashen within the ardent west

The lips of thunder muttered harm,

As a bubble like to break

Hung heaven's trembling amethyst,

When with the sedge-grass by the lake

I braceleted her wrist.

The Coming Storm
(1869)
Albert Bierstadt
(1830-1902)
German-American painter

And when the ribbon grass was tied,

Sad with the happiness we planned,

Palm linked in palm we stood awhile

And watched the raindrops dot the sand;

Until the anger of the breeze

Chid all the lakes' bright breathing down,

And ravished all the radiances

From her deep eyes of brown.

We gazed from shelter on the storm

And through our hearts swept ghostly pain

To see the shards of day sweep past,

Broken, and none might mend again.

Broken that none shall never mend;

Loosened, that none shall ever tie.

O the wind and the wind, will it never end?

O the sweeping past of the ruined sky!

"The Bracelet Of Grass"
William Vaughn Moody
(1869-1910)
American dramatist and poet