Harvest Evening

Read "Harvest Evening" at The Eldritch Dark:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/poetry/226/harvest-evening

In this haiku, Clark Ashton Smith (CAS) paints a landscape in the red and yellow coloration of day's end.  

Until reading this short poem, I had never previously encountered the verb "raddle", one definition of which is to "color coarsely with red or rouge."  CAS' use of that word demonstrates the careful way he approached diction, since the short length of the haiku form demands that each word is significant.  

Combined with alliteration on the letter "b", the musicality of "raddled" in the closing line of "Harvest Evening" gives the reading a momentum that echoes the movement of the cows through the sunset.