Frederick Philip Grove
LANDSCAPES
(IM 16-28)

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e-Edition by Gaby Divay
© August 2007

University of Manitoba Libraries	FPG & FrL Collections	University of Manitoba Archives

AT SEA [1] by Frederick Philip Grove (1922) This is the coldest and most silent hour Of all the night, the last before the dawn. Bare hills and woodlands cosmically tower About a void whence all life is withdrawn-- Withdrawn into a dreamland of sweet sleep, Paved with dark columbine and meadow-rue, With nodding grass and mosses soft and deep That droop with darkness and with beads of dew. Yet pale the stars; and into lowered skies From somewhere filters light. All life still rests; But yawns and turns and peers with furtive eyes As unfledged birds twitter within their nests. Then streams that light in flakes like driving sleet; And, new created, shelves a breathing lawn Above the river's steaming mirror-sheet Where, silver-mailed, the little fishes spawn. And colors brighten; flutes a meadow-lark; And sparrows chirp; and rabbits leap and run: Into the valley, firing spark on spark, Above the hill-crest, slants the sun, the sun! In Memoriam 22