Pigeons and fowls about a pointed haystack;
The red-tiled barns we sleep in;
The profile of the distant town
Misty against the leaden-silver sky;
Two ragged willows and a fallen elm
With an end of broken wall
Glimmering through evening mist—
All worthy Rembrandt's hand,
Rembrandt who loved homely things …
Then there's the rain pool where we wash,
Skimming the film-ice with our tingling hands;
The elm-fringed dykes and solemn placid fields
Flat as a slate and blacker.
There's the church—
The poorest ever built I think—
With all its painted plaster saints
Straight from the rue St. Sulpice,
Its dreadful painted windows,
And Renaissance "St. Jacques le Majeur"
Over the porch …
IV
To-day the larks are up,
The willow boughs are red with sap,
The last ice melting on the dykes;
One side there stands a row of poplars,
Slender amazons, martial and tall,
And on the other
The sunlight makes the red-tiled roofs deep orange …
[45]
