Explore "Leaves" by Frederic Manning on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
A frail and tenuous mist lingers on baffled and intricate branches; / Little gilt leaves are still, for quietness holds every bough; / Pools in the muddy road slumber, reflecting indifferent stars; / Steeped in the loveliness of moonlight is earth, and the valleys, / Brimmed up with quiet shadow, with a mist of sleep.
But afar on the horizon rise great pulses of light, / The hammering of guns, wrestling, locked in conflict / Like brute, stone gods of old struggling confusedly; / Then overhead purrs a shell, and our heavies / Answer, with sudden clapping bruits of sound, / Loosening our shells that stream whining and whimpering precipitately, / Hounding through air athirst for blood.
And the little gilt leaves / Flicker in falling, like waifs and flakes of flame.