The Foreigner Poem by Francis Joseph Sherman

He walked by me with open eyes,
And wondered that I loved it so;
Above us stretched the gray, gray skies;
Behind us, footprints on the snow.

Before us slept a dark, dark wood.

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Hemlocks were there, and little pines
Also; and solemn cedars stood
In even and uneven lines.

The branches of each silent tree
Bent downward, for the snow’s hard weight

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Was pressing on them heavily;
They had not known the sun of late.

(Except when it was afternoon,
And then a sickly sun peered in
A little while; it vanished soon

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And then they were as they had been.) [page 37]

There was no sound ( I thought I heard
The axe of some man far away)
There was no sound of bee, or bird,
Or chattering squirrel at its play.

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And so he wondered I was glad.
―There was one thing he could not see;
Beneath the look these dead things had
I saw Spring eyes agaze at me.