Classic Poem

Upon the lifeless summer falls the rain,
the rain is plashing on the lifeless leaves,
and all is shut, rain beats with wild refrain
against the moss, that to the threshold cleaves;

and thunder bolts are muttering on high,
except that, now and then, one falls anew.

I pushed ajar the window: a strong tide
surging I heard: two torrents and a stream;
and seemed to hear a tiny bird that cried
and see a darkening of plumes, a gleam.

O swallow, strayed and lonely in the sky,
how comes it that this weather finds here … you?

Oh, this is not a summer thundershower
with rosy evening after a dark day,
evening that seemed at your arrival hour
tender and fresh, as in the time of May,

when, to the old nests on the roof-edge borne,
the lively tribe called out the greeting due.

The tribe has long since gone from here, so long
that now they're thinking of their northern way;
perhaps already they rehearse the song
that they will sing at dawning of that day:
they're dreaming now San Benedetto's morn
in the remote Baghirmi and Bornù.

I close the window. Cold about me lies,
the rainy wind-gusts pierce me to the core.
And, far away, instead of wee bird-cries,
I hear the voice of streams, and more and more.

the dripping water and the thunder's play,
and, every moment higher, the winds sweep through.

Outside I see two shadows, things in flight,
two purpling swallows in the eve forlorn,
that tarried here alone in the autumn night,
winging their way alone, by tempest borne:

that stayed behind that clamorous parting day
of strident cries and calls of young love true.

Father they are, and Mother. 'Neath the eaves
there is a nest, with silent nests about,
a nest of theirs, that hides, the while it grieves,
wee swallows six with feathers not yet out.

Disaster drove them from their nest in flight.
Beside that which had been, the new nest grew.

'Tis late. The nest that is two nests at heart
is famished in the midst of so much death.

The year is dead, and day will now depart,
the thunder roars, louder the wind's fell breath,

the water plashes, darkness turns to night,
and that which was, will never come anew.