THE FROGS, a poem

A CONCERT IN THE MARSH

THE perfect eloquence of silence; then,
     Amid the softened afterglow,
From each bay-bordered island fen
     On either hand, distinct but low—
     Was it the twang of strings?...
     O'erhead there is a whirr of homing wings,
And silence falls again.

But now—ah, timely,—the choragus! Hark!
     Leader of choric minstrels grim,
Grave his solemnity: and mark
     What eerie voices follow him
     As strophe and antistrophe
     Swell to the roar of a far-sounding sea,
Out of the marshy dark!

Can these, indeed, be voices, that so greet
     The twilight still? I seem to hear
Oboe and cymbal in a rhythmic beat
     With bass-drum and bassoon; their drear
     And droll crescendo louder growing,
     Then falling back, like waters ebbing, flowing,—
Back to the silence sweet!

"The Frogs" by Florence Earle Coates. Published in Poems (1916) Volume II.