Winter Leafage by Edith Matilda Thomas

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend December 27, 2015   Winter Leafage   Edith Matilda Thomas

Each year I mark one lone outstanding tree, Clad in its robings of the summer past, Dry, wan, and shivering in the wintry blast. It will not pay the season’s rightful fee,— It will not set its frost-burnt leafage free; But like some palsied miser all aghast, Who hoards his sordid treasure to the last, It sighs, it moans, it sings in eldritch glee. A foolish tree, to dote on summers gone; A faithless tree, that never feels how spring Creeps up the world to make a leafy dawn, And recompense for all despoilment bring! Oh, let me not, heyday and youth withdrawn, With failing hands to their vain semblance cling!            This poem is in the public domain. About This Poem   “Winter Leafage” was published in Thomas’s book Lyrics and Sonnets (Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1887).   Edith Matilda Thomas was born in Ohio in 1854. Her books include A Winter Swallow (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896) and Fair Shadow Land (Houghton, Mifflin, 1893). She died in 1925. Poetry by Thomas   A Winter Swallow (Palala Press, 2015) "Winter Heavens" by George Meredith "Winter Trees" by William Carlos Williams "January" by Helen Hunt Jackson Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038