Transformed

A battered thing it seems That salt encrusted drift wood, but the skies Showed never rainbow with more gorgeous dyes Than gild that firelight’s beams. The cloud banks dull and grey Far in the west, are but a canvas spread For supernatural scenes in gold and red When ends the dying day. The icy Frost King lays His finger on the leaves and lo, the fires Of fairy land on autumn’s funeral pyres Seem everywhere ablaze. And so each inner trace Of life’s deep grief and cankered bitterness Is graven in those lines of kindliness Upon an aged face.