Briar

Briar, thorny and wind-tossed, Cloaked in the shade of a hallowed night, Your roots bathe in the tangled soil, While the moon finds her garden of glass,:

A small round warmth in the chill stars. Fingers clasped in the matted hide, I feel how the dark world lingers, and sighs, As the scent dangles on the furls of pride.

And if I too bend by the marshlands, All the suspect rays spun from you Will seem like butterflies in a sun-borne net, Fluttering on hopes that once shone true.

• John Crowe Ransom