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diff --git a/78327-0.txt b/78327-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2368942 --- /dev/null +++ b/78327-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9823 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78327 *** + + + + +[Illustration: Robert Frost] + + + + + COLLECTED POEMS OF ROBERT FROST + + [Illustration] + + NEW YORK + HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY + + + + + _Fourth Printing_ + + Copyright 1930 by Henry Holt and Company, Inc + Manufactured in the United States of America + + + + +CONTENTS + + + The Pasture page 1 + + +A BOY’S WILL + + Into my Own 5 + Ghost House 6 + My November Guest 8 + Love and a Question 9 + A Late Walk 11 + Stars 12 + Storm Fear 13 + Wind and Window Flower 14 + To the Thawing Wind 16 + A Prayer in Spring 17 + Flower-Gathering 18 + Rose Pogonias 19 + Waiting 20 + In a Vale 21 + A Dream Pang 22 + In Neglect 23 + The Vantage Point 24 + Mowing 25 + Going for Water 26 + Revelation 27 + The Trial by Existence 28 + The Tuft of Flowers 31 + Pan With Us 33 + The Demiurge’s Laugh 35 + Now Close the Windows 36 + In Hardwood Groves 37 + A Line-Storm Song 38 + October 40 + My Butterfly 41 + Reluctance 43 + + +NORTH OF BOSTON + + Mending Wall 47 + The Death of the Hired Man 49 + The Mountain 56 + A Hundred Collars 61 + Home Burial 69 + The Black Cottage 74 + Blueberries 78 + A Servant to Servants 82 + After Apple-Picking 88 + The Code 90 + The Generations of Men 94 + The Housekeeper 103 + The Fear 112 + The Self-Seeker 117 + The Wood-Pile 126 + Good Hours 128 + + +MOUNTAIN INTERVAL + + The Road Not Taken 131 + Christmas Trees 132 + An Old Man’s Winter Night 135 + The Exposed Nest 136 + A Patch of Old Snow 138 + In the Home Stretch 139 + The Telephone 147 + Meeting and Passing 148 + Hyla Brook 149 + The Oven Bird 150 + Bond and Free 151 + Birches 152 + Pea Brush 154 + Putting in the Seed 155 + A Time to Talk 156 + The Cow in Apple Time 157 + An Encounter 158 + Range-Finding 159 + The Hill Wife 160 + The Bonfire 163 + A Girl’s Garden 167 + Locked Out 169 + The Last Word of a Bluebird 170 + ‘Out, Out--’ 171 + Brown’s Descent 173 + The Gum-Gatherer 176 + The Line-Gang 178 + The Vanishing Red 179 + Snow 180 + The Sound of the Trees 195 + + +NEW HAMPSHIRE + + New Hampshire 199 + A Star in a Stone-Boat 213 + The Census-Taker 216 + The Star-Splitter 218 + Maple 222 + The Axe-Helve 228 + The Grindstone 232 + Paul’s Wife 235 + Wild Grapes 240 + Place for a Third 244 + Two Witches 247 + An Empty Threat 256 + A Fountain, a Bottle, a Donkey’s Ears and Some Books 258 + I Will Sing You One-O 264 + Fragmentary Blue 267 + Fire and Ice 268 + In a Disused Graveyard 269 + Dust of Snow 270 + To E. T. 271 + Nothing Gold Can Stay 272 + The Runaway 273 + The Aim Was Song 274 + Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening 275 + For Once, Then, Something 276 + Blue-Butterfly Day 277 + The Onset 278 + To Earthward 279 + Good-Bye and Keep Cold 281 + Two Look at Two 282 + Not to Keep 284 + A Brook in the City 285 + The Kitchen Chimney 286 + Looking for a Sunset Bird in Winter 287 + A Boundless Moment 288 + Evening in a Sugar Orchard 289 + Gathering Leaves 290 + The Valley’s Singing Day 291 + Misgiving 292 + A Hillside Thaw 293 + Plowmen 295 + On a Tree Fallen Across the Road 296 + Our Singing Strength 297 + The Lockless Door 299 + The Need of Being Versed in Country Things 300 + + +WEST-RUNNING BROOK + + Spring Pools 303 + The Freedom of the Moon 304 + The Rose Family 305 + Fireflies in the Garden 306 + Atmosphere 307 + Devotion 308 + On Going Unnoticed 309 + The Cocoon 310 + A Passing Glimpse 311 + A Peck of Gold 312 + Acceptance 313 + Once by the Pacific 314 + Lodged 315 + A Minor Bird 316 + Bereft 317 + Tree at My Window 318 + The Peaceful Shepherd 319 + The Thatch 320 + A Winter Eden 322 + The Flood 323 + Acquainted With the Night 324 + The Lovely Shall Be Choosers 325 + West-running Brook 327 + Sand Dunes 330 + Canis Major 331 + A Soldier 332 + Immigrants 333 + Hannibal 334 + The Flower Boat 335 + The Times Table 336 + The Investment 337 + The Last Mowing 338 + The Birthplace 339 + The Door in the Dark 340 + Dust in the Eyes 341 + Sitting by a Bush in Broad Sunlight 342 + The Armful 343 + What Fifty Said 344 + Riders 345 + On Looking Up By Chance at the Constellations 346 + The Bear 347 + The Egg and the Machine 349 + + + + +_The Pasture_ + + + I’m going out to clean the pasture spring; + I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away + (And wait to watch the water clear, I may): + I sha’n’t be gone long.--You come too. + + I’m going out to fetch the little calf + That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young, + It totters when she licks it with her tongue. + I sha’n’t be gone long.--You come too. + + + + +A BOY’S WILL + + + + +_Into my Own_ + + + One of my wishes is that those dark trees, + So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze, + Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom, + But stretched away unto the edge of doom. + + I should not be withheld but that some day + Into their vastness I should steal away, + Fearless of ever finding open land, + Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand. + + I do not see why I should e’er turn back, + Or those should not set forth upon my track + To overtake me, who should miss me here + And long to know if still I held them dear. + + They would not find me changed from him they knew-- + Only more sure of all I thought was true. + + + + +_Ghost House_ + + + I dwell in a lonely house I know + That vanished many a summer ago, + And left no trace but the cellar walls, + And a cellar in which the daylight falls, + And the purple-stemmed wild raspberries grow. + + O’er ruined fences the grape-vines shield + The woods come back to the mowing field; + The orchard tree has grown one copse + Of new wood and old where the woodpecker chops; + The footpath down to the well is healed. + + I dwell with a strangely aching heart + In that vanished abode there far apart + On that disused and forgotten road + That has no dust-bath now for the toad. + Night comes; the black bats tumble and dart; + + The whippoorwill is coming to shout + And hush and cluck and flutter about: + I hear him begin far enough away + Full many a time to say his say + Before he arrives to say it out. + + It is under the small, dim, summer star. + I know not who these mute folk are + Who share the unlit place with me-- + Those stones out under the low-limbed tree + Doubtless bear names that the mosses mar. + + They are tireless folk, but slow and sad, + Though two, close-keeping, are lass and lad,-- + With none among them that ever sings, + And yet, in view of how many things, + As sweet companions as might be had. + + + + +_My November Guest_ + + + My Sorrow, when she’s here with me, + Thinks these dark days of autumn rain + Are beautiful as days can be; + She loves the bare, the withered tree; + She walks the sodden pasture lane. + + Her pleasure will not let me stay. + She talks and I am fain to list: + She’s glad the birds are gone away, + She’s glad her simple worsted grey + Is silver now with clinging mist. + + The desolate, deserted trees, + The faded earth, the heavy sky, + The beauties she so truly sees, + She thinks I have no eye for these, + And vexes me for reason why. + + Not yesterday I learned to know + The love of bare November days + Before the coming of the snow, + But it were vain to tell her so, + And they are better for her praise. + + + + +_Love and a Question_ + + + A Stranger came to the door at eve, + And he spoke the bridegroom fair. + He bore a green-white stick in his hand, + And, for all burden, care. + He asked with the eyes more than the lips + For a shelter for the night, + And he turned and looked at the road afar + Without a window light. + + The bridegroom came forth into the porch + With ‘Let us look at the sky, + And question what of the night to be, + Stranger, you and I.’ + The woodbine leaves littered the yard, + The woodbine berries were blue, + Autumn, yes, winter was in the wind; + ‘Stranger, I wish I knew.’ + + Within, the bride in the dusk alone + Bent over the open fire, + Her face rose-red with the glowing coal + And the thought of the heart’s desire. + The bridegroom looked at the weary road, + Yet saw but her within, + And wished her heart in a case of gold + And pinned with a silver pin. + + The bridegroom thought it little to give + A dole of bread, a purse, + A heartfelt prayer for the poor of God, + Or for the rich a curse; + But whether or not a man was asked + To mar the love of two + By harboring woe in the bridal house, + The bridegroom wished he knew. + + + + +_A Late Walk_ + + + When I go up through the mowing field, + The headless aftermath, + Smooth-laid like thatch with the heavy dew, + Half closes the garden path. + + And when I come to the garden ground, + The whir of sober birds + Up from the tangle of withered weeds + Is sadder than any words. + + A tree beside the wall stands bare, + But a leaf that lingered brown, + Disturbed, I doubt not, by my thought, + Comes softly rattling down. + + I end not far from my going forth + By picking the faded blue + Of the last remaining aster flower + To carry again to you. + + + + +_Stars_ + + + How countlessly they congregate + O’er our tumultuous snow, + Which flows in shapes as tall as trees + When wintry winds do blow!-- + + As if with keenness for our fate, + Our faltering few steps on + To white rest, and a place of rest + Invisible at dawn,-- + + And yet with neither love nor hate, + Those stars like some snow-white + Minerva’s snow-white marble eyes + Without the gift of sight. + + + + +_Storm Fear_ + + + When the wind works against us in the dark, + And pelts with snow + The lower chamber window on the east, + And whispers with a sort of stifled bark, + The beast, + ‘Come out! Come out!’-- + It costs no inward struggle not to go, + Ah, no! + I count our strength, + Two and a child, + Those of us not asleep subdued to mark + How the cold creeps as the fire dies at length,-- + How drifts are piled, + Dooryard and road ungraded, + Till even the comforting barn grows far away, + And my heart owns a doubt + Whether ’tis in us to arise with day + And save ourselves unaided. + + + + +_Wind and Window Flower_ + + + Lovers, forget your love, + And list to the love of these, + She a window flower, + And he a winter breeze. + + When the frosty window veil + Was melted down at noon, + And the cagèd yellow bird + Hung over her in tune, + + He marked her through the pane, + He could not help but mark, + And only passed her by, + To come again at dark. + + He was a winter wind, + Concerned with ice and snow. + Dead weeds and unmated birds, + And little of love could know. + + But he sighed upon the sill, + He gave the sash a shake, + As witness all within + Who lay that night awake. + + Perchance he half prevailed + To win her for the flight + From the firelit looking-glass + And warm stove-window light. + + But the flower leaned aside + And thought of naught to say, + And morning found the breeze + A hundred miles away. + + + + +_To the Thawing Wind_ + + + Come with rain, O loud Southwester! + Bring the singer, bring the nester; + Give the buried flower a dream; + Make the settled snow-bank steam; + Find the brown beneath the white; + But whate’er you do to-night, + Bathe my window, make it flow, + Melt it as the ice will go; + Melt the glass and leave the sticks + Like a hermit’s crucifix; + Burst into my narrow stall; + Swing the picture on the wall; + Run the rattling pages o’er; + Scatter poems on the floor; + Turn the poet out of door. + + + + +_Prayer in Spring_ + + + Oh, give us pleasure in the flowers to-day; + And give us not to think so far away + As the uncertain harvest; keep us here + All simply in the springing of the year. + + Oh, give us pleasure in the orchard white, + Like nothing else by day, like ghosts by night; + And make us happy in the happy bees, + The swarm dilating round the perfect trees. + + And make us happy in the darting bird + That suddenly above the bees is heard, + The meteor that thrusts in with needle bill, + And off a blossom in mid air stands still. + + For this is love and nothing else is love, + The which it is reserved for God above + To sanctify to what far ends He will, + But which it only needs that we fulfil. + + + + +_Flower-Gathering_ + + + I left you in the morning, + And in the morning glow, + You walked a way beside me + To make me sad to go. + Do you know me in the gloaming, + Gaunt and dusty grey with roaming? + Are you dumb because you know me not, + Or dumb because you know? + + All for me? And not a question + For the faded flowers gay + That could take me from beside you + For the ages of a day? + They are yours, and be the measure + Of their worth for you to treasure, + The measure of the little while + That I’ve been long away. + + + + +_Rose Pogonias_ + + + A saturated meadow, + Sun-shaped and jewel-small, + A circle scarcely wider + Than the trees around were tall; + Where winds were quite excluded, + And the air was stifling sweet + With the breath of many flowers,-- + A temple of the heat. + + There we bowed us in the burning, + As the sun’s right worship is, + To pick where none could miss them + A thousand orchises; + For though the grass was scattered, + Yet every second spear + Seemed tipped with wings of color, + That tinged the atmosphere. + + We raised a simple prayer + Before we left the spot, + That in the general mowing + That place might be forgot; + Or if not all so favoured, + Obtain such grace of hours, + That none should mow the grass there + While so confused with flowers. + + + + +_Waiting_ + +AFIELD AT DUSK + + + What things for dream there are when spectre-like, + Moving among tall haycocks lightly piled, + I enter alone upon the stubble field, + From which the laborers’ voices late have died, + And in the antiphony of afterglow + And rising full moon, sit me down + Upon the full moon’s side of the first haycock + And lose myself amid so many alike. + + I dream upon the opposing lights of the hour, + Preventing shadow until the moon prevail; + I dream upon the night-hawks peopling heaven, + Each circling each with vague unearthly cry, + Or plunging headlong with fierce twang afar; + And on the bat’s mute antics, who would seem + Dimly to have made out my secret place, + Only to lose it when he pirouettes, + And seek it endlessly with purblind haste; + On the last swallow’s sweep; and on the rasp + In the abyss of odor and rustle at my back, + That, silenced by my advent, finds once more, + After an interval, his instrument, + And tries once--twice--and thrice if I be there; + And on the worn book of old-golden song + I brought not here to read, it seems, but hold + And freshen in this air of withering sweetness; + But on the memory of one absent most, + For whom these lines when they shall greet her eye. + + + + +_In a Vale_ + + + When I was young, we dwelt in a vale + By a misty fen that rang all night, + And thus it was the maidens pale + I knew so well, whose garments trail + Across the reeds to a window light. + + The fen had every kind of bloom, + And for every kind there was a face, + And a voice that has sounded in my room + Across the sill from the outer gloom. + Each came singly unto her place, + + But all came every night with the mist; + And often they brought so much to say + Of things of moment to which, they wist, + One so lonely was fain to list, + That the stars were almost faded away + + Before the last went, heavy with dew, + Back to the place from which she came-- + Where the bird was before it flew, + Where the flower was before it grew, + Where bird and flower were one and the same. + + And thus it is I know so well + Why the flower has odor, the bird has song. + You have only to ask me, and I can tell. + No, not vainly there did I dwell, + Nor vainly listen all the night long. + + + + +_A Dream Pang_ + + + I had withdrawn in forest, and my song + Was swallowed up in leaves that blew alway; + And to the forest edge you came one day + (This was my dream) and looked and pondered long, + But did not enter, though the wish was strong: + You shook your pensive head as who should say, + ‘I dare not--too far in his footsteps stray-- + He must seek me would he undo the wrong.’ + + Not far, but near, I stood and saw it all + Behind low boughs the trees let down outside; + And the sweet pang it cost me not to call + And tell you that I saw does still abide. + But ’tis not true that thus I dwelt aloof, + For the wood wakes, and you are here for proof. + + + + +_In Neglect_ + + + They leave us so to the way we took, + As two in whom they were proved mistaken, + That we sit sometimes in the wayside nook, + With mischievous, vagrant, seraphic look, + And _try_ if we cannot feel forsaken. + + + + +_The Vantage Point_ + + + If tired of trees I seek again mankind, + Well I know where to hie me--in the dawn, + To a slope where the cattle keep the lawn. + There amid lolling juniper reclined, + Myself unseen, I see in white defined + Far off the homes of men, and farther still, + The graves of men on an opposing hill, + Living or dead, whichever are to mind. + + And if by noon I have too much of these, + I have but to turn on my arm, and lo, + The sun-burned hillside sets my face aglow, + My breathing shakes the bluet like a breeze, + I smell the earth, I smell the bruisèd plant, + I look into the crater of the ant. + + + + +_Mowing_ + + + There was never a sound beside the wood but one, + And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground. + What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself; + Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun, + Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound-- + And that was why it whispered and did not speak. + It was no dream of the gift of idle hours, + Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf: + Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak + To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows, + Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers + (Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake. + The fact is the sweetest dream that labor knows. + My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make. + + + + +_Going for Water_ + + + The well was dry beside the door, + And so we went with pail and can + Across the fields behind the house + To seek the brook if still it ran; + + Not loth to have excuse to go, + Because the autumn eve was fair + (Though chill), because the fields were ours, + And by the brook our woods were there. + + We ran as if to meet the moon + That slowly dawned behind the trees, + The barren boughs without the leaves, + Without the birds, without the breeze. + + But once within the wood, we paused + Like gnomes that hid us from the moon, + Ready to run to hiding new + With laughter when she found us soon. + + Each laid on other a staying hand + To listen ere we dared to look, + And in the hush we joined to make + We heard, we knew we heard the brook. + + A note as from a single place, + A slender tinkling fall that made + Now drops that floated on the pool + Like pearls, and now a silver blade. + + + + +_Revelation_ + + + We make ourselves a place apart + Behind light words that tease and flout, + But oh, the agitated heart + Till someone find us really out. + + ’Tis pity if the case require + (Or so we say) that in the end + We speak the literal to inspire + The understanding of a friend. + + But so with all, from babes that play + At hide-and-seek to God afar, + So all who hide too well away + Must speak and tell us where they are. + + + + +_The Trial by Existence_ + + + Even the bravest that are slain + Shall not dissemble their surprise + On waking to find valor reign, + Even as on earth, in paradise; + And where they sought without the sword + Wide fields of asphodel fore’er, + To find that the utmost reward + Of daring should be still to dare. + + The light of heaven falls whole and white + And is not shattered into dyes, + The light for ever is morning light; + The hills are verdured pasture-wise; + The angel hosts with freshness go, + And seek with laughter what to brave;-- + And binding all is the hushed snow + Of the far-distant breaking wave. + + And from a cliff-top is proclaimed + The gathering of the souls for birth, + The trial by existence named, + The obscuration upon earth. + And the slant spirits trooping by + In streams and cross- and counter-streams + Can but give ear to that sweet cry + For its suggestion of what dreams! + + And the more loitering are turned + To view once more the sacrifice + Of those who for some good discerned + Will gladly give up paradise. + And a white shimmering concourse rolls + Toward the throne to witness there + The speeding of devoted souls + Which God makes his especial care. + + And none are taken but who will, + Having first heard the life read out + That opens earthward, good and ill, + Beyond the shadow of a doubt; + And very beautifully God limns, + And tenderly, life’s little dream, + But naught extenuates or dims, + Setting the thing that is supreme. + + Nor is there wanting in the press + Some spirit to stand simply forth, + Heroic in its nakedness, + Against the uttermost of earth. + The tale of earth’s unhonored things + Sounds nobler there than ’neath the sun; + And the mind whirls and the heart sings, + And a shout greets the daring one. + + But always God speaks at the end: + ‘One thought in agony of strife + The bravest would have by for friend, + The memory that he chose the life; + But the pure fate to which you go + Admits no memory of choice, + Or the woe were not earthly woe + To which you give the assenting voice.’ + + And so the choice must be again, + But the last choice is still the same; + And the awe passes wonder then, + And a hush falls for all acclaim. + And God has taken a flower of gold + And broken it, and used therefrom + The mystic link to bind and hold + Spirit to matter till death come. + + ’Tis of the essence of life here, + Though we choose greatly, still to lack + The lasting memory at all clear, + That life has for us on the wrack + Nothing but what we somehow chose; + Thus are we wholly stripped of pride + In the pain that has but one close, + Bearing it crushed and mystified. + + + + +_The Tuft of Flowers_ + + + I went to turn the grass once after one + Who mowed it in the dew before the sun. + + The dew was gone that made his blade so keen + Before I came to view the levelled scene. + + I looked for him behind an isle of trees; + I listened for his whetstone on the breeze. + + But he had gone his way, the grass all mown, + And I must be, as he had been,--alone, + + ‘As all must be,’ I said within my heart, + ‘Whether they work together or apart.’ + + But as I said it, swift there passed me by + On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly, + + Seeking with memories grown dim o’er night + Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight. + + And once I marked his flight go round and round, + As where some flower lay withering on the ground. + + And then he flew as far as eye could see, + And then on tremulous wing came back to me. + + I thought of questions that have no reply, + And would have turned to toss the grass to dry; + + But he turned first, and led my eye to look + At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook, + + A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared + Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared. + + I left my place to know them by their name, + Finding them butterfly weed when I came. + + The mower in the dew had loved them thus, + By leaving them to flourish, not for us, + + Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him, + But from sheer morning gladness at the brim. + + The butterfly and I had lit upon, + Nevertheless, a message from the dawn, + + That made me hear the wakening birds around, + And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground, + + And feel a spirit kindred to my own; + So that henceforth I worked no more alone; + + But glad with him, I worked as with his aid, + And weary, sought at noon with him the shade; + + And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech + With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach. + + ‘Men work together,’ I told him from the heart, + ‘Whether they work together or apart.’ + + + + +_Pan With Us_ + + + Pan came out of the woods one day,-- + His skin and his hair and his eyes were gray, + The gray of the moss of walls were they,-- + And stood in the sun and looked his fill + At wooded valley and wooded hill. + + He stood in the zephyr, pipes in hand, + On a height of naked pasture land; + In all the country he did command + He saw no smoke and he saw no roof. + That was well! and he stamped a hoof. + + His heart knew peace, for none came here + To this lean feeding save once a year + Someone to salt the half-wild steer, + Or homespun children with clicking pails + Who see so little they tell no tales. + + He tossed his pipes, too hard to teach + A new-world song, far out of reach, + For a sylvan sign that the blue jay’s screech + And the whimper of hawks beside the sun + Were music enough for him, for one. + + Times were changed from what they were: + Such pipes kept less of power to stir + The fruited bough of the juniper + And the fragile bluets clustered there + Than the merest aimless breath of air. + + They were pipes of pagan mirth, + And the world had found new terms of worth. + He laid him down on the sun-burned earth + And ravelled a flower and looked away-- + Play? Play?--What should he play? + + + + +_The Demiurge’s Laugh_ + + + It was far in the sameness of the wood; + I was running with joy on the Demon’s trail, + Though I knew what I hunted was no true god. + It was just as the light was beginning to fail + That I suddenly heard--all I needed to hear: + It has lasted me many and many a year. + + The sound was behind me instead of before, + A sleepy sound, but mocking half, + As of one who utterly couldn’t care. + The Demon arose from his wallow to laugh, + Brushing the dirt from his eye as he went; + And well I knew what the Demon meant. + + I shall not forget how his laugh rang out. + I felt as a fool to have been so caught, + And checked my steps to make pretence + It was something among the leaves I sought + (Though doubtful whether he stayed to see). + Thereafter I sat me against a tree. + + + + +_Now Close the Windows_ + + + Now close the windows and hush all the fields; + If the trees must, let them silently toss; + No bird is singing now, and if there is, + Be it my loss. + + It will be long ere the marshes resume, + It will be long ere the earliest bird: + So close the windows and not hear the wind, + But see all wind-stirred. + + + + +_In Hardwood Groves_ + + + The same leaves over and over again! + They fall from giving shade above + To make one texture of faded brown + And fit the earth like a leather glove. + + Before the leaves can mount again + To fill the trees with another shade, + They must go down past things coming up, + They must go down into the dark decayed. + + They _must_ be pierced by flowers and put + Beneath the feet of dancing flowers. + However it is in some other world + I know that this is the way in ours. + + + + +_A Line-Storm Song_ + + + The line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift, + The road is forlorn all day, + Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift, + And the hoof-prints vanish away. + The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee, + Expend their bloom in vain. + Come over the hills and far with me, + And be my love in the rain. + + The birds have less to say for themselves + In the wood-world’s torn despair + Than now these numberless years the elves, + Although they are no less there: + All song of the woods is crushed like some + Wild, easily shattered rose. + Come, be my love in the wet woods, come, + Where the boughs rain when it blows. + + There is the gale to urge behind + And bruit our singing down, + And the shallow waters aflutter with wind + From which to gather your gown. + What matter if we go clear to the west, + And come not through dry-shod? + For wilding brooch shall wet your breast + The rain-fresh goldenrod. + + Oh, never this whelming east wind swells + But it seems like the sea’s return + To the ancient lands where it left the shells + Before the age of the fern; + And it seems like the time when after doubt + Our love came back amain. + Oh, come forth into the storm and rout + And be my love in the rain. + + + + +_October_ + + + O hushed October morning mild, + Thy leaves have ripened to the fall; + To-morrow’s wind, if it be wild, + Should waste them all. + The crows above the forest call; + To-morrow they may form and go. + O hushed October morning mild, + Begin the hours of this day slow. + Make the day seem to us less brief. + Hearts not averse to being beguiled, + Beguile us in the way you know. + Release one leaf at break of day; + At noon release another leaf; + One from our trees, one far away. + Retard the sun with gentle mist; + Enchant the land with amethyst. + Slow, slow! + For the grapes’ sake, if they were all, + Whose leaves already are burnt with frost, + Whose clustered fruit must else be lost-- + For the grapes’ sake along the wall. + + + + +_My Butterfly_ + + + Thine emulous fond flowers are dead, too, + And the daft sun-assaulter, he + That frighted thee so oft, is fled or dead: + Save only me + (Nor is it sad to thee!) + Save only me + There is none left to mourn thee in the fields. + + The gray grass is scarce dappled with the snow; + Its two banks have not shut upon the river; + But it is long ago-- + It seems forever-- + Since first I saw thee glance, + With all thy dazzling other ones, + In airy dalliance, + Precipitate in love, + Tossed, tangled, whirled and whirled above, + Like a limp rose-wreath in a fairy dance. + + When that was, the soft mist + Of my regret hung not on all the land, + And I was glad for thee, + And glad for me, I wist. + + Thou didst not know, who tottered, wandering on high, + That fate had made thee for the pleasure of the wind, + With those great careless wings, + Nor yet did I. + + And there were other things: + It seemed God let thee flutter from his gentle clasp: + Then fearful he had let thee win + Too far beyond him to be gathered in, + Snatched thee, o’er eager, with ungentle grasp. + + Ah! I remember me + How once conspiracy was rife + Against my life-- + The languor of it and the dreaming fond; + Surging, the grasses dizzied me of thought, + The breeze three odors brought, + And a gem-flower waved in a wand! + + Then when I was distraught + And could not speak, + Sidelong, full on my cheek, + What should that reckless zephyr fling + But the wild touch of thy dye-dusty wing! + + I found that wing broken to-day! + For thou art dead, I said, + And the strange birds say. + I found it with the withered leaves + Under the eaves. + + + + +_Reluctance_ + + + Out through the fields and the woods + And over the walls I have wended; + I have climbed the hills of view + And looked at the world, and descended; + I have come by the highway home, + And lo, it is ended. + + The leaves are all dead on the ground, + Save those that the oak is keeping + To ravel them one by one + And let them go scraping and creeping + Out over the crusted snow, + When others are sleeping. + + And the dead leaves lie huddled and still, + No longer blown hither and thither; + The last lone aster is gone; + The flowers of the wich-hazel wither; + The heart is still aching to seek, + But the feet question ‘Whither?’ + + Ah, when to the heart of man + Was it ever less than a treason + To go with the drift of things, + To yield with a grace to reason, + And bow and accept the end + Of a love or a season? + + + + +NORTH OF BOSTON + + + + +_Mending Wall_ + + + Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, + That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, + And spills the upper boulders in the sun; + And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. + The work of hunters is another thing; + I have come after them and made repair + Where they have left not one stone on a stone, + But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, + To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, + No one has seen them made or heard them made, + But at spring mending-time we find them there. + I let my neighbour know beyond the hill; + And on a day we meet to walk the line + And set the wall between us once again. + We keep the wall between us as we go. + To each the boulders that have fallen to each. + And some are loaves and some so nearly balls + We have to use a spell to make them balance: + ‘Stay where you are until our backs are turned!’ + We wear our fingers rough with handling them. + Oh, just another kind of out-door game, + One on a side. It comes to little more: + There where it is we do not need the wall: + He is all pine and I am apple orchard. + My apple trees will never get across + And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. + He only says, ‘Good fences make good neighbours.’ + Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder + If I could put a notion in his head: + ‘_Why_ do they make good neighbours? Isn’t it + Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. + Before I built a wall I’d ask to know + What I was walling in or walling out, + And to whom I was like to give offence. + Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, + That wants it down.’ I could say ‘Elves’ to him, + But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather + He said it for himself. I see him there + Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top + In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. + He moves in darkness as it seems to me, + Not of woods only and the shade of trees. + He will not go behind his father’s saying, + And he likes having thought of it so well + He says again, ‘Good fences make good neighbours.’ + + + + +_The Death of the Hired Man_ + + + Mary sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table + Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step, + She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage + To meet him in the doorway with the news + And put him on his guard. ‘Silas is back.’ + She pushed him outward with her through the door + And shut it after her. ‘Be kind,’ she said. + She took the market things from Warren’s arms + And set them on the porch, then drew him down + To sit beside her on the wooden steps. + + ‘When was I ever anything but kind to him? + But I’ll not have the fellow back,’ he said. + ‘I told him so last haying, didn’t I? + “If he left then,” I said, “that ended it.” + What good is he? Who else will harbour him + At his age for the little he can do? + What help he is there’s no depending on. + Off he goes always when I need him most. + “He thinks he ought to earn a little pay, + Enough at least to buy tobacco with, + So he won’t have to beg and be beholden.” + “All right,” I say, “I can’t afford to pay + Any fixed wages, though I wish I could.” + “Someone else can.” “Then someone else will have to.” + I shouldn’t mind his bettering himself + If that was what it was. You can be certain, + When he begins like that, there’s someone at him + Trying to coax him off with pocket-money,-- + In haying time, when any help is scarce. + In winter he comes back to us. I’m done.’ + + ‘Sh! not so loud: he’ll hear you,’ Mary said. + + ‘I want him to: he’ll have to soon or late.’ + + ‘He’s worn out. He’s asleep beside the stove. + When I came up from Rowe’s I found him here, + Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep, + A miserable sight, and frightening, too-- + You needn’t smile--I didn’t recognise him-- + I wasn’t looking for him--and he’s changed. + Wait till you see.’ + + ‘Where did you say he’d been?’ + + ‘He didn’t say. I dragged him to the house, + And gave him tea and tried to make him smoke. + I tried to make him talk about his travels. + Nothing would do: he just kept nodding off.’ + + ‘What did he say? Did he say anything?’ + + ‘But little.’ + + ‘Anything? Mary, confess + He said he’d come to ditch the meadow for me.’ + + ‘Warren!’ + + ‘But did he? I just want to know.’ + + ‘Of course he did. What would you have him say? + Surely you wouldn’t grudge the poor old man + Some humble way to save his self-respect. + He added, if you really care to know, + He meant to clear the upper pasture, too. + That sounds like something you have heard before? + Warren, I wish you could have heard the way + He jumbled everything. I stopped to look + Two or three times--he made me feel so queer-- + To see if he was talking in his sleep. + He ran on Harold Wilson--you remember-- + The boy you had in haying four years since. + He’s finished school, and teaching in his college. + Silas declares you’ll have to get him back. + He says they two will make a team for work: + Between them they will lay this farm as smooth! + The way he mixed that in with other things. + He thinks young Wilson a likely lad, though daft + On education--you know how they fought + All through July under the blazing sun, + Silas up on the cart to build the load, + Harold along beside to pitch it on.’ + + ‘Yes, I took care to keep well out of earshot.’ + + ‘Well, those days trouble Silas like a dream. + You wouldn’t think they would. How some things linger! + Harold’s young college boy’s assurance piqued him. + After so many years he still keeps finding + Good arguments he sees he might have used. + I sympathise. I know just how it feels + To think of the right thing to say too late. + Harold’s associated in his mind with Latin. + He asked me what I thought of Harold’s saying + He studied Latin like the violin + Because he liked it--that an argument! + He said he couldn’t make the boy believe + He could find water with a hazel prong-- + Which showed how much good school had ever done + He wanted to go over that. But most of all + He thinks if he could have another chance + To teach him how to build a load of hay--’ + + ‘I know, that’s Silas’ one accomplishment. + He bundles every forkful in its place, + And tags and numbers it for future reference, + So he can find and easily dislodge it + In the unloading. Silas does that well. + He takes it out in bunches like big birds’ nests. + You never see him standing on the hay + He’s trying to lift, straining to lift himself.’ + + ‘He thinks if he could teach him that, he’d be + Some good perhaps to someone in the world. + He hates to see a boy the fool of books. + Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk, + And nothing to look backward to with pride, + And nothing to look forward to with hope, + So now and never any different.’ + + Part of a moon was falling down the west, + Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills. + Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw it + And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand + Among the harp-like morning-glory strings, + Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves, + As if she played unheard some tenderness + That wrought on him beside her in the night. + ‘Warren,’ she said, ‘he has come home to die: + You needn’t be afraid he’ll leave you this time.’ + + ‘Home,’ he mocked gently. + + ‘Yes, what else but home? + It all depends on what you mean by home. + Of course he’s nothing to us, any more + Than was the hound that came a stranger to us + Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.’ + + ‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there, + They have to take you in.’ + + ‘I should have called it + Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.’ + + Warren leaned out and took a step or two, + Picked up a little stick, and brought it back + And broke it in his hand and tossed it by. + ‘Silas has better claim on us you think + Than on his brother? Thirteen little miles + As the road winds would bring him to his door. + Silas has walked that far no doubt to-day. + Why didn’t he go there? His brother’s rich, + A somebody--director in the bank.’ + + ‘He never told us that.’ + + ‘We know it though.’ + + ‘I think his brother ought to help, of course. + I’ll see to that if there is need. He ought of right + To take him in, and might be willing to-- + He may be better than appearances. + But have some pity on Silas. Do you think + If he had any pride in claiming kin + Or anything he looked for from his brother, + He’d keep so still about him all this time?’ + + ‘I wonder what’s between them.’ + + ‘I can tell you. + Silas is what he is--we wouldn’t mind him-- + But just the kind that kinsfolk can’t abide. + He never did a thing so very bad. + He don’t know why he isn’t quite as good + As anybody. Worthless though he is, + He won’t be made ashamed to please his brother.’ + + ‘_I_ can’t think Si ever hurt anyone.’ + + ‘No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay + And rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back. + He wouldn’t let me put him on the lounge. + You must go in and see what you can do. + I made the bed up for him there to-night. + You’ll be surprised at him--how much he’s broken. + His working days are done; I’m sure of it.’ + + ‘I’d not be in a hurry to say that.’ + + ‘I haven’t been. Go, look, see for yourself. + But, Warren, please remember how it is: + He’s come to help you ditch the meadow. + He has a plan. You mustn’t laugh at him. + He may not speak of it, and then he may. + I’ll sit and see if that small sailing cloud + Will hit or miss the moon.’ + + It hit the moon. + Then there were three there, making a dim row, + The moon, the little silver cloud, and she. + + Warren returned--too soon, it seemed to her, + Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited. + + ‘Warren?’ she questioned. + + ‘Dead,’ was all he answered. + + + + +_The Mountain_ + + + The mountain held the town as in a shadow. + I saw so much before I slept there once: + I noticed that I missed stars in the west, + Where its black body cut into the sky. + Near me it seemed: I felt it like a wall + Behind which I was sheltered from a wind. + And yet between the town and it I found, + When I walked forth at dawn to see new things, + Were fields, a river, and beyond, more fields. + The river at the time was fallen away, + And made a widespread brawl on cobble-stones; + But the signs showed what it had done in spring: + Good grass land gullied out, and in the grass + Ridges of sand, and driftwood stripped of bark. + I crossed the river and swung round the mountain. + And there I met a man who moved so slow + With white-faced oxen in a heavy cart, + It seemed no harm to stop him altogether. + + ‘What town is this?’ I asked. + + ‘This? Lunenburg.’ + + Then I was wrong: the town of my sojourn, + Beyond the bridge, was not that of the mountain, + But only felt at night its shadowy presence. + ‘Where is your village? Very far from here?’ + + ‘There is no village--only scattered farms. + We were but sixty voters last election. + We can’t in nature grow to many more: + That thing takes all the room!’ He moved his goad. + The mountain stood there to be pointed at. + Pasture ran up the side a little way, + And then there was a wall of trees with trunks; + After that only tops of trees, and cliffs + Imperfectly concealed among the leaves. + A dry ravine emerged from under boughs + Into the pasture. + + ‘That looks like a path. + Is that the way to reach the top from here?-- + Not for this morning, but some other time: + I must be getting back to breakfast now.’ + + ‘I don’t advise your trying from this side. + There is no proper path, but those that _have_ + Been up, I understand, have climbed from Ladd’s. + That’s five miles back. You can’t mistake the place: + They logged it there last winter some way up. + I’d take you, but I’m bound the other way.’ + + ‘You’ve never climbed it?’ + + ‘I’ve been on the sides, + Deer-hunting and trout-fishing. There’s a brook + That starts up on it somewhere--I’ve heard say + Right on the top, tip-top--a curious thing. + But what would interest you about the brook, + It’s always cold in summer, warm in winter. + One of the great sights going is to see + It steam in winter like an ox’s breath, + Until the bushes all along its banks + Are inch-deep with the frosty spines and bristles-- + You know the kind. Then let the sun shine on it!’ + + ‘There ought to be a view around the world + From such a mountain--if it isn’t wooded + Clear to the top.’ I saw through leafy screens + Great granite terraces in sun and shadow, + Shelves one could rest a knee on getting up-- + With depths behind him sheer a hundred feet; + Or turn and sit on and look out and down, + With little ferns in crevices at his elbow. + + ‘As to that I can’t say. But there’s the spring, + Right on the summit, almost like a fountain. + That ought to be worth seeing.’ + + ‘If it’s there. + You never saw it?’ + + ‘I guess there’s no doubt + About its being there. I never saw it. + It may not be right on the very top: + It wouldn’t have to be a long way down + To have some head of water from above, + And a _good distance_ down might not be noticed + By anyone who’d come a long way up. + One time I asked a fellow climbing it + To look and tell me later how it was.’ + + ‘What did he say?’ + + ‘He said there was a lake + Somewhere in Ireland on a mountain top.’ + + ‘But a lake’s different. What about the spring?’ + + ‘He never got up high enough to see. + That’s why I don’t advise your trying this side. + He tried this side. I’ve always meant to go + And look myself, but you know how it is: + It doesn’t seem so much to climb a mountain + You’ve worked around the foot of all your life. + What would I do? Go in my overalls, + With a big stick, the same as when the cows + Haven’t come down to the bars at milking time? + Or with a shotgun for a stray black bear? + ’Twouldn’t seem real to climb for climbing it.’ + + ‘I shouldn’t climb it if I didn’t want to-- + Not for the sake of climbing. What’s its name?’ + + ‘We call it Hor: I don’t know if that’s right.’ + + ‘Can one walk around it? Would it be too far?’ + + ‘You can drive round and keep in Lunenburg, + But it’s as much as ever you can do, + The boundary lines keep in so close to it. + Hor is the township, and the township’s Hor-- + _And_ a few houses sprinkled round the foot, + Like boulders broken off the upper cliff, + Rolled out a little farther than the rest.’ + + ‘Warm in December, cold in June, you say?’ + + ‘I don’t suppose the water’s changed at all. + You and I know enough to know it’s warm + Compared with cold, and cold compared with warm. + But all the fun’s in how you say a thing.’ + + ‘You’ve lived here all your life?’ + + ‘Ever since Hor + Was no bigger than a--’ What, I did not hear. + He drew the oxen toward him with light touches + Of his slim goad on nose and offside flank, + Gave them their marching orders and was moving. + + + + +_A Hundred Collars_ + + + Lancaster bore him--such a little town, + Such a great man. It doesn’t see him often + Of late years, though he keeps the old homestead + And sends the children down there with their mother + To run wild in the summer--a little wild. + Sometimes he joins them for a day or two + And sees old friends he somehow can’t get near. + They meet him in the general store at night, + Pre-occupied with formidable mail, + Rifling a printed letter as he talks. + They seem afraid. He wouldn’t have it so: + Though a great scholar, he’s a democrat, + If not at heart, at least on principle. + Lately when coming up to Lancaster, + His train being late, he missed another train + And had four hours to wait at Woodsville Junction + After eleven o’clock at night. Too tired + To think of sitting such an ordeal out, + He turned to the hotel to find a bed. + + ‘No room,’ the night clerk said. ‘Unless--’ + + Woodsville’s a place of shrieks and wandering lamps + And cars that shock and rattle--and _one_ hotel. + + ‘You say “unless.”’ + + ‘Unless you wouldn’t mind + Sharing a room with someone else.’ + + ‘Who is it?’ + + ‘A man.’ + + ‘So I should hope. What kind of man?’ + + ‘I know him: he’s all right. A man’s a man. + Separate beds, of course, you understand.’ + The night clerk blinked his eyes and dared him on. + + ‘Who’s that man sleeping in the office chair? + Has he had the refusal of my chance?’ + + ‘He was afraid of being robbed or murdered. + What do you say?’ + + ‘I’ll have to have a bed.’ + + The night clerk led him up three flights of stairs + And down a narrow passage full of doors, + At the last one of which he knocked and entered. + ‘Lafe, here’s a fellow wants to share your room.’ + + ‘Show him this way. I’m not afraid of him. + I’m not so drunk I can’t take care of myself.’ + + The night clerk clapped a bedstead on the foot. + ‘This will be yours. Good-night,’ he said, and went. + + ‘Lafe was the name, I think?’ + + ‘Yes, _Lay_fayette. + You got it the first time. And yours?’ + + ‘Magoon. + Doctor Magoon.’ + + ‘A Doctor?’ + + ‘Well, a teacher.’ + + ‘Professor Square-the-circle-till-you’re-tired? + Hold on, there’s something I don’t think of now + That I had on my mind to ask the first + Man that knew anything I happened in with. + I’ll ask you later--don’t let me forget it.’ + + The Doctor looked at Lafe and looked away. + A man? A brute. Naked above the waist, + He sat there creased and shining in the light, + Fumbling the buttons in a well-starched shirt. + ‘I’m moving into a size-larger shirt. + I’ve felt mean lately; mean’s no name for it. + I just found what the matter was to-night: + I’ve been a-choking like a nursery tree + When it outgrows the wire band of its name tag. + I blamed it on the hot spell we’ve been having. + ’Twas nothing but my foolish hanging back, + Not liking to own up I’d grown a size. + Number eighteen this is. What size do you wear?’ + + The Doctor caught his throat convulsively. + ‘Oh--ah--fourteen--fourteen.’ + + ‘Fourteen! You say so! + I can remember when I wore fourteen. + And come to think I must have back at home + More than a hundred collars, size fourteen. + Too bad to waste them all. You ought to have them. + They’re yours and welcome; let me send them to you. + What makes you stand there on one leg like that? + You’re not much furtherer than where Kike left you. + You act as if you wished you hadn’t come. + Sit down or lie down, friend; you make me nervous.’ + + The Doctor made a subdued dash for it, + And propped himself at bay against a pillow. + + ‘Not that way, with your shoes on Kike’s white bed. + You can’t rest that way. Let me pull your shoes off.’ + + ‘Don’t touch me, please--I say, don’t touch me, please. + I’ll not be put to bed by you, my man.’ + + ‘Just as you say. Have it your own way then. + “My man” is it? You talk like a professor. + Speaking of who’s afraid of who, however, + I’m thinking I have more to lose than you + If anything should happen to be wrong. + Who wants to cut your number fourteen throat! + Let’s have a show down as an evidence + Of good faith. There is ninety dollars. + Come, if you’re not afraid.’ + + ‘_I_’m not afraid. + There’s five: that’s all I carry.’ + + ‘I can search you? + Where are you moving over to? Stay still. + You’d better tuck your money under you + And sleep on it the way I always do + When I’m with people I don’t trust at night.’ + + ‘Will you believe me if I put it there + Right on the counterpane--that I do trust you?’ + + ‘You’d say so, Mister Man.--I’m a collector. + My ninety isn’t mine--you won’t think that. + I pick it up a dollar at a time + All round the country for the _Weekly News_, + Published in Bow. You know the _Weekly News_?’ + + ‘Known it since I was young.’ + + ‘Then you know me. + Now we are getting on together--talking. + I’m sort of Something for it at the front. + My business is to find what people want: + They pay for it, and so they ought to have it. + Fairbanks, he says to me--he’s editor-- + “Feel out the public sentiment”--he says. + A good deal comes on me when all is said. + The only trouble is we disagree + In politics: I’m Vermont Democrat-- + You know what that is, sort of double-dyed; + The _News_ has always been Republican. + Fairbanks, he says to me, “Help us this year,” + Meaning by us their ticket. “No,” I says, + “I can’t and won’t. You’ve been in long enough: + It’s time you turned around and boosted us. + You’ll have to pay me more than ten a week + If I’m expected to elect Bill Taft. + I doubt if I could do it anyway.”’ + + ‘You seem to shape the paper’s policy.’ + + ‘You see I’m in with everybody, know ’em all. + I almost know their farms as well as they do.’ + + ‘You drive around? It must be pleasant work.’ + + ‘It’s business, but I can’t say it’s not fun. + What I like best’s the lay of different farms, + Coming out on them from a stretch of woods. + Or over a hill or round a sudden corner. + I like to find folks getting out in spring, + Raking the dooryard, working near the house. + Later they get out further in the fields. + Everything’s shut sometimes except the barn; + The family’s all away in some back meadow. + There’s a hay load a-coming--when it comes. + And later still they all get driven in: + The fields are stripped to lawn, the garden patches + Stripped to bare ground, the maple trees + To whips and poles. There’s nobody about. + The chimney, though, keeps up a good brisk smoking. + And I lie back and ride. I take the reins + Only when someone’s coming, and the mare + Stops when she likes: I tell her when to go. + I’ve spoiled Jemima in more ways than one. + She’s got so she turns in at every house + As if she had some sort of curvature, + No matter if I have no errand there. + She thinks I’m sociable. I maybe am. + It’s seldom I get down except for meals, though. + Folks entertain me from the kitchen doorstep, + All in a family row down to the youngest.’ + + ‘One would suppose they might not be as glad + To see you as you are to see them.’ + + ‘Oh, + Because I want their dollar? I don’t want + Anything they’ve not got. I never dun. + I’m there, and they can pay me if they like. + I go nowhere on purpose: I happen by. + Sorry there is no cup to give you a drink. + I drink out of the bottle--not your style. + Mayn’t I offer you--?’ + + ‘No, no, no, thank you.’ + + ‘Just as you say. Here’s looking at you then.-- + And now I’m leaving you a little while. + You’ll rest easier when I’m gone, perhaps-- + Lie down--let yourself go and get some sleep. + But first--let’s see--what was I going to ask you? + Those collars--who shall I address them to, + Suppose you aren’t awake when I come back?’ + + ‘Really, friend, I can’t let you. You--may need them.’ + + ‘Not till I shrink, when they’ll be out of style.’ + + ‘But really I--I have so many collars.’ + + ‘I don’t know who I rather would have have them. + They’re only turning yellow where they are. + But you’re the doctor as the saying is. + I’ll put the light out. Don’t you wait for me: + I’ve just begun the night. You get some sleep. + I’ll knock so-fashion and peep round the door + When I come back so you’ll know who it is. + There’s nothing I’m afraid of like scared people. + I don’t want you should shoot me in the head. + What am I doing carrying off this bottle? + There now, you get some sleep.’ + + He shut the door. + The Doctor slid a little down the pillow. + + + + +_Home Burial_ + + + He saw her from the bottom of the stairs + Before she saw him. She was starting down, + Looking back over her shoulder at some fear. + She took a doubtful step and then undid it + To raise herself and look again. He spoke + Advancing toward her: ‘What is it you see + From up there always--for I want to know.’ + She turned and sank upon her skirts at that, + And her face changed from terrified to dull. + He said to gain time: ‘What is it you see,’ + Mounting until she cowered under him. + ‘I will find out now--you must tell me, dear.’ + She, in her place, refused him any help + With the least stiffening of her neck and silence. + She let him look, sure that he wouldn’t see, + Blind creature; and a while he didn’t see. + But at last he murmured, ‘Oh,’ and again, ‘Oh.’ + + ‘What is it--what?’ she said. + + ‘Just that I see.’ + + ‘You don’t,’ she challenged. ‘Tell me what it is.’ + + ‘The wonder is I didn’t see at once. + I never noticed it from here before. + I must be wonted to it--that’s the reason. + The little graveyard where my people are! + So small the window frames the whole of it. + Not so much larger than a bedroom, is it? + There are three stones of slate and one of marble, + Broad-shouldered little slabs there in the sunlight + On the sidehill. We haven’t to mind _those_. + But I understand: it is not the stones, + But the child’s mound--’ + + ‘Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t,’ she cried. + + She withdrew shrinking from beneath his arm + That rested on the banister, and slid downstairs; + And turned on him with such a daunting look, + He said twice over before he knew himself. + ‘Can’t a man speak of his own child he’s lost?’ + + ‘Not you! Oh, where’s my hat? Oh, I don’t need it! + I must get out of here. I must get air. + I don’t know rightly whether any man can.’ + + ‘Amy! Don’t go to someone else this time. + Listen to me. I won’t come down the stairs.’ + He sat and fixed his chin between his fists. + ‘There’s something I should like to ask you, dear.’ + + ‘You don’t know how to ask it.’ + + ‘Help me, then.’ + + Her fingers moved the latch for all reply. + + ‘My words are nearly always an offence. + I don’t know how to speak of anything + So as to please you. But I might be taught + I should suppose. I can’t say I see how. + A man must partly give up being a man + With women-folk. We could have some arrangement + By which I’d bind myself to keep hands off + Anything special you’re a-mind to name. + Though I don’t like such things ’twixt those that love. + Two that don’t love can’t live together without them. + But two that do can’t live together with them.’ + She moved the latch a little. ‘Don’t--don’t go. + Don’t carry it to someone else this time. + Tell me about it if it’s something human. + Let me into your grief. I’m not so much + Unlike other folks as your standing there + Apart would make me out. Give me my chance. + I do think, though, you overdo it a little. + What was it brought you up to think it the thing + To take your mother-loss of a first child + So inconsolably--in the face of love. + You’d think his memory might be satisfied--’ + + ‘There you go sneering now!’ + + ‘I’m not, I’m not! + You make me angry. I’ll come down to you. + God, what a woman! And it’s come to this, + A man can’t speak of his own child that’s dead.’ + + ‘You can’t because you don’t know how to speak. + If you had any feelings, you that dug + With your own hand--how could you?--his little grave; + I saw you from that very window there, + Making the gravel leap and leap in air, + Leap up, like that, like that, and land so lightly + And roll back down the mound beside the hole. + I thought, Who is that man? I didn’t know you. + And I crept down the stairs and up the stairs + To look again, and still your spade kept lifting. + Then you came in. I heard your rumbling voice + Out in the kitchen, and I don’t know why, + But I went near to see with my own eyes. + You could sit there with the stains on your shoes + Of the fresh earth from your own baby’s grave + And talk about your everyday concerns. + You had stood the spade up against the wall + Outside there in the entry, for I saw it.’ + + ‘I shall laugh the worst laugh I ever laughed. + I’m cursed. God, if I don’t believe I’m cursed.’ + + ‘I can repeat the very words you were saying. + “Three foggy mornings and one rainy day + Will rot the best birch fence a man can build.” + Think of it, talk like that at such a time! + What had how long it takes a birch to rot + To do with what was in the darkened parlour. + You _couldn’t_ care! The nearest friends can go + With anyone to death, comes so far short + They might as well not try to go at all. + No, from the time when one is sick to death, + One is alone, and he dies more alone. + Friends make pretence of following to the grave, + But before one is in it, their minds are turned + And making the best of their way back to life + And living people, and things they understand. + But the world’s evil. I won’t have grief so + If I can change it. Oh, I won’t, I won’t!’ + + ‘There, you have said it all and you feel better. + You won’t go now. You’re crying. Close the door. + The heart’s gone out of it: why keep it up. + Amy! There’s someone coming down the road!’ + + ‘_You_--oh, you think the talk is all. I must go-- + Somewhere out of this house. How can I make you--’ + + ‘If--you--do!’ She was opening the door wider. + ‘Where do you mean to go? First tell me that. + I’ll follow and bring you back by force. I _will_!--’ + + + + +_The Black Cottage_ + + + We chanced in passing by that afternoon + To catch it in a sort of special picture + Among tar-banded ancient cherry trees, + Set well back from the road in rank lodged grass, + The little cottage we were speaking of, + A front with just a door between two windows, + Fresh painted by the shower a velvet black. + We paused, the minister and I, to look. + He made as if to hold it at arm’s length + Or put the leaves aside that framed it in. + ‘Pretty,’ he said. ‘Come in. No one will care.’ + The path was a vague parting in the grass + That led us to a weathered window-sill. + We pressed our faces to the pane. ‘You see,’ he said, + ‘Everything’s as she left it when she died. + Her sons won’t sell the house or the things in it. + They say they mean to come and summer here + Where they were boys. They haven’t come this year. + They live so far away--one is out west-- + It will be hard for them to keep their word. + Anyway they won’t have the place disturbed.’ + A buttoned hair-cloth lounge spread scrolling arms + Under a crayon portrait on the wall, + Done sadly from an old daguerreotype. + ‘That was the father as he went to war. + She always, when she talked about the war, + Sooner or later came and leaned, half knelt + Against the lounge beside it, though I doubt + If such unlifelike lines kept power to stir + Anything in her after all the years. + He fell at Gettysburg or Fredericksburg, + I ought to know--it makes a difference which: + Fredericksburg wasn’t Gettysburg, of course. + But what I’m getting to is how forsaken + A little cottage this has always seemed; + Since she went more than ever, but before-- + I don’t mean altogether by the lives + That had gone out of it, the father first, + Then the two sons, till she was left alone. + (Nothing could draw her after those two sons. + She valued the considerate neglect + She had at some cost taught them after years.) + I mean by the world’s having passed it by-- + As we almost got by this afternoon. + It always seems to me a sort of mark + To measure how far fifty years have brought us. + Why not sit down if you are in no haste? + These doorsteps seldom have a visitor. + The warping boards pull out their own old nails + With none to tread and put them in their place. + She had her own idea of things, the old lady. + And she liked talk. She had seen Garrison + And Whittier, and had her story of them. + One wasn’t long in learning that she thought + Whatever else the Civil War was for, + It wasn’t just to keep the States together, + Nor just to free the slaves, though it did both. + She wouldn’t have believed those ends enough + To have given outright for them all she gave. + Her giving somehow touched the principle + That all men are created free and equal. + And to hear her quaint phrases--so removed + From the world’s view to-day of all those things. + That’s a hard mystery of Jefferson’s. + What did he mean? Of course the easy way + Is to decide it simply isn’t true. + It may not be. I heard a fellow say so. + But never mind, the Welshman got it planted + Where it will trouble us a thousand years. + Each age will have to reconsider it. + You couldn’t tell her what the West was saying, + And what the South to her serene belief. + She had some art of hearing and yet not + Hearing the latter wisdom of the world. + White was the only race she ever knew. + Black she had scarcely seen, and yellow never. + But how could they be made so very unlike + By the same hand working in the same stuff? + She had supposed the war decided that. + What are you going to do with such a person? + Strange how such innocence gets its own way. + I shouldn’t be surprised if in this world + It were the force that would at last prevail. + Do you know but for her there was a time + When to please younger members of the church, + Or rather say non-members in the church, + Whom we all have to think of nowadays, + I would have changed the Creed a very little? + Not that she ever had to ask me not to; + It never got so far as that; but the bare thought + Of her old tremulous bonnet in the pew, + And of her half asleep was too much for me. + Why, I might wake her up and startle her. + It was the words “descended into Hades” + That seemed too pagan to our liberal youth. + You know they suffered from a general onslaught. + And well, if they weren’t true why keep right on + Saying them like the heathen? We could drop them. + Only--there was the bonnet in the pew. + Such a phrase couldn’t have meant much to her. + But suppose she had missed it from the Creed + As a child misses the unsaid Good-night, + And falls asleep with heartache--how should _I_ feel? + I’m just as glad she made me keep hands off, + For, dear me, why abandon a belief + Merely because it ceases to be true. + Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt + It will turn true again, for so it goes. + Most of the change we think we see in life + Is due to truths being in and out of favour. + As I sit here, and oftentimes, I wish + I could be monarch of a desert land + I could devote and dedicate forever + To the truths we keep coming back and back to. + So desert it would have to be, so walled + By mountain ranges half in summer snow, + No one would covet it or think it worth + The pains of conquering to force change on. + Scattered oases where men dwelt, but mostly + Sand dunes held loosely in tamarisk + Blown over and over themselves in idleness. + Sand grains should sugar in the natal dew + The babe born to the desert, the sand storm + Retard mid-waste my cowering caravans-- + There are bees in this wall.’ He struck the clapboards, + Fierce heads looked out; small bodies pivoted. + We rose to go. Sunset blazed on the windows. + + + + +_Blueberries_ + + + ‘You ought to have seen what I saw on my way + To the village, through Patterson’s pasture to-day: + Blueberries as big as the end of your thumb, + Real sky-blue, and heavy, and ready to drum + In the cavernous pail of the first one to come! + And all ripe together, not some of them green + And some of them ripe! You ought to have seen!’ + + ‘I don’t know what part of the pasture you mean.’ + + ‘You know where they cut off the woods--let me see-- + It was two years ago--or no!--can it be + No longer than that?--and the following fall + The fire ran and burned it all up but the wall.’ + + ‘Why, there hasn’t been time for the bushes to grow. + That’s always the way with the blueberries, though: + There may not have been the ghost of a sign + Of them anywhere under the shade of the pine, + But get the pine out of the way, you may burn + The pasture all over until not a fern + Or grass-blade is left, not to mention a stick, + And presto, they’re up all around you as thick + And hard to explain as a conjuror’s trick.’ + + ‘It must be on charcoal they fatten their fruit. + I taste in them sometimes the flavour of soot. + And after all really they’re ebony skinned: + The blue’s but a mist from the breath of the wind, + A tarnish that goes at a touch of the hand, + And less than the tan with which pickers are tanned.’ + + ‘Does Patterson know what he has, do you think?’ + + ‘He may and not care and so leave the chewink + To gather them for him--you know what he is. + He won’t make the fact that they’re rightfully his + An excuse for keeping us other folk out.’ + + ‘I wonder you didn’t see Loren about.’ + + ‘The best of it was that I did. Do you know, + I was just getting through what the field had to show + And over the wall and into the road, + When who should come by, with a democrat-load + Of all the young chattering Lorens alive, + But Loren, the fatherly, out for a drive.’ + + ‘He saw you, then? What did he do? Did he frown?’ + + ‘He just kept nodding his head up and down. + You know how politely he always goes by. + But he thought a big thought--I could tell by his eye-- + Which being expressed, might be this in effect: + “I have left those there berries, I shrewdly suspect, + To ripen too long. I am greatly to blame.”’ + + ‘He’s a thriftier person than some I could name.’ + + ‘He seems to be thrifty; and hasn’t he need, + With the mouths of all those young Lorens to feed? + He has brought them all up on wild berries, they say, + Like birds. They store a great many away. + They eat them the year round, and those they don’t eat + They sell in the store and buy shoes for their feet.’ + + ‘Who cares what they say? It’s a nice way to live, + Just taking what Nature is willing to give, + Not forcing her hand with harrow and plow.’ + + ‘I wish you had seen his perpetual bow-- + And the air of the youngsters! Not one of them turned, + And they looked so solemn-absurdly concerned.’ + + ‘I wish I knew half what the flock of them know + Of where all the berries and other things grow, + Cranberries in bogs and raspberries on top + Of the boulder-strewn mountain, and when they will crop. + I met them one day and each had a flower + Stuck into his berries as fresh as a shower; + Some strange kind--they told me it hadn’t a name.’ + + ‘I’ve told you how once not long after we came, + I almost provoked poor Loren to mirth + By going to him of all people on earth + To ask if he knew any fruit to be had + For the picking. The rascal, he said he’d be glad + To tell if he knew. But the year had been bad. + There _had_ been some berries--but those were all gone. + He didn’t say where they had been. He went on: + “I’m sure--I’m sure”--as polite as could be. + He spoke to his wife in the door, “Let me see, + Mame, _we_ don’t know any good berrying place?” + It was all he could do to keep a straight face.’ + + ‘If he thinks all the fruit that grows wild is for him, + He’ll find he’s mistaken. See here, for a whim, + We’ll pick in the Pattersons’ pasture this year. + We’ll go in the morning, that is, if it’s clear, + And the sun shines out warm: the vines must be wet. + It’s so long since I picked I almost forget + How we used to pick berries: we took one look round, + Then sank out of sight like trolls underground, + And saw nothing more of each other, or heard, + Unless when you said I was keeping a bird + Away from its nest, and I said it was you. + “Well, one of us is.” For complaining it flew + Around and around us. And then for a while + We picked, till I feared you had wandered a mile, + And I thought I had lost you. I lifted a shout + Too loud for the distance you were, it turned out, + For when you made answer, your voice was as low + As talking--you stood up beside me, you know.’ + + ‘We sha’n’t have the place to ourselves to enjoy-- + Not likely, when all the young Lorens deploy. + They’ll be there to-morrow, or even to-night. + They won’t be too friendly--they may be polite-- + To people they look on as having no right + To pick where they’re picking. But we won’t complain. + You ought to have seen how it looked in the rain, + The fruit mixed with water in layers of leaves, + Like two kinds of jewels, a vision for thieves.’ + + + + +_A Servant to Servants_ + + + I didn’t make you know how glad I was + To have you come and camp here on our land. + I promised myself to get down some day + And see the way you lived, but I don’t know! + With a houseful of hungry men to feed + I guess you’d find.... It seems to me + I can’t express my feelings any more + Than I can raise my voice or want to lift + My hand (oh, I can lift it when I have to). + Did ever you feel so? I hope you never. + It’s got so I don’t even know for sure + Whether I _am_ glad, sorry, or anything. + There’s nothing but a voice-like left inside + That seems to tell me how I ought to feel, + And would feel if I wasn’t all gone wrong. + You take the lake. I look and look at it. + I see it’s a fair, pretty sheet of water. + I stand and make myself repeat out loud + The advantages it has, so long and narrow, + Like a deep piece of some old running river + Cut short off at both ends. It lies five miles + Straight away through the mountain notch + From the sink window where I wash the plates, + And all our storms come up toward the house, + Drawing the slow waves whiter and whiter and whiter. + It took my mind off doughnuts and soda biscuit + To step outdoors and take the water dazzle + A sunny morning, or take the rising wind + About my face and body and through my wrapper, + When a storm threatened from the Dragon’s Den, + And a cold chill shivered across the lake. + I see it’s a fair, pretty sheet of water, + Our Willoughby! How did you hear of it? + I expect, though, everyone’s heard of it. + In a book about ferns? Listen to that! + You let things more like feathers regulate + Your going and coming. And you like it here? + I can see how you might. But I don’t know! + It would be different if more people came, + For then there would be business. As it is, + The cottages Len built, sometimes we rent them, + Sometimes we don’t. We’ve a good piece of shore + That ought to be worth something, and may yet. + But I don’t count on it as much as Len. + He looks on the bright side of everything, + Including me. He thinks I’ll be all right + With doctoring. But it’s not medicine-- + Lowe is the only doctor’s dared to say so-- + It’s rest I want--there, I have said it out-- + From cooking meals for hungry hired men + And washing dishes after them--from doing + Things over and over that just won’t stay done. + By good rights I ought not to have so much + Put on me, but there seems no other way. + Len says one steady pull more ought to do it. + He says the best way out is always through. + And I agree to that, or in so far + As that I can see no way out but through-- + Leastways for me--and then they’ll be convinced. + It’s not that Len don’t want the best for me. + It was his plan our moving over in + Beside the lake from where that day I showed you + We used to live--ten miles from anywhere. + We didn’t change without some sacrifice, + But Len went at it to make up the loss. + His work’s a man’s, of course, from sun to sun, + But he works when he works as hard as I do-- + Though there’s small profit in comparisons. + (Women and men will make them all the same.) + But work ain’t all. Len undertakes too much. + He’s into everything in town. This year + It’s highways, and he’s got too many men + Around him to look after that make waste. + They take advantage of him shamefully, + And proud, too, of themselves for doing so. + We have four here to board, great good-for-nothings, + Sprawling about the kitchen with their talk + While I fry their bacon. Much they care! + No more put out in what they do or say + Than if I wasn’t in the room at all. + Coming and going all the time, they are: + I don’t learn what their names are, let alone + Their characters, or whether they are safe + To have inside the house with doors unlocked. + I’m not afraid of them, though, if they’re not + Afraid of me. There’s two can play at that. + I have my fancies: it runs in the family. + My father’s brother wasn’t right. They kept him + Locked up for years back there at the old farm. + I’ve been away once--yes, I’ve been away. + The State Asylum. I was prejudiced; + I wouldn’t have sent anyone of mine there; + You know the old idea--the only asylum + Was the poorhouse, and those who could afford, + Rather than send their folks to such a place, + Kept them at home; and it does seem more human. + But it’s not so: the place is the asylum. + There they have every means proper to do with, + And you aren’t darkening other people’s lives-- + Worse than no good to them, and they no good + To you in your condition; you can’t know + Affection or the want of it in that state. + I’ve heard too much of the old-fashioned way. + My father’s brother, he went mad quite young. + Some thought he had been bitten by a dog, + Because his violence took on the form + Of carrying his pillow in his teeth; + But it’s more likely he was crossed in love, + Or so the story goes. It was some girl. + Anyway all he talked about was love. + They soon saw he would do someone a mischief + If he wa’n’t kept strict watch of, and it ended + In father’s building him a sort of cage, + Or room within a room, of hickory poles, + Like stanchions in the barn, from floor to ceiling,-- + A narrow passage all the way around. + Anything they put in for furniture + He’d tear to pieces, even a bed to lie on. + So they made the place comfortable with straw, + Like a beast’s stall, to ease their consciences. + Of course they had to feed him without dishes. + They tried to keep him clothed, but he paraded + With his clothes on his arm--all of his clothes. + Cruel--it sounds. I ’spose they did the best + They knew. And just when he was at the height, + Father and mother married, and mother came, + A bride, to help take care of such a creature, + And accommodate her young life to his. + That was what marrying father meant to her. + She had to lie and hear love things made dreadful + By his shouts in the night. He’d shout and shout + Until the strength was shouted out of him, + And his voice died down slowly from exhaustion. + He’d pull his bars apart like bow and bowstring, + And let them go and make them twang until + His hands had worn them smooth as any oxbow. + And then he’d crow as if he thought that child’s play-- + The only fun he had. I’ve heard them say, though, + They found a way to put a stop to it. + He was before my time--I never saw him; + But the pen stayed exactly as it was + There in the upper chamber in the ell, + A sort of catch-all full of attic clutter. + I often think of the smooth hickory bars. + It got so I would say--you know, half fooling-- + ‘It’s time I took my turn upstairs in jail’-- + Just as you will till it becomes a habit. + No wonder I was glad to get away. + Mind you, I waited till Len said the word. + I didn’t want the blame if things went wrong. + I was glad though, no end, when we moved out, + And I looked to be happy, and I was, + As I said, for a while--but I don’t know! + Somehow the change wore out like a prescription. + And there’s more to it than just window-views + And living by a lake. I’m past such help-- + Unless Len took the notion, which he won’t, + And I won’t ask him--it’s not sure enough. + I ’spose I’ve got to go the road I’m going: + Other folks have to, and why shouldn’t I? + I almost think if I could do like you, + Drop everything and live out on the ground-- + But it might be, come night, I shouldn’t like it, + Or a long rain. I should soon get enough, + And be glad of a good roof overhead. + I’ve lain awake thinking of you, I’ll warrant, + More than you have yourself, some of these nights. + The wonder was the tents weren’t snatched away + From over you as you lay in your beds. + I haven’t courage for a risk like that. + Bless you, of course, you’re keeping me from work, + But the thing of it is, I need to _be_ kept. + There’s work enough to do--there’s always that; + But behind’s behind. The worst that you can do + Is set me back a little more behind. + I sha’n’t catch up in this world, anyway. + I’d _rather_ you’d not go unless you must. + + + + +_After Apple-Picking_ + + + My long two-pointed ladder’s sticking through a tree + Toward heaven still, + And there’s a barrel that I didn’t fill + Beside it, and there may be two or three + Apples I didn’t pick upon some bough. + But I am done with apple-picking now. + Essence of winter sleep is on the night, + The scent of apples: I am drowsing off. + I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight + I got from looking through a pane of glass + I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough + And held against the world of hoary grass. + It melted, and I let it fall and break. + But I was well + Upon my way to sleep before it fell, + And I could tell + What form my dreaming was about to take. + Magnified apples appear and disappear, + Stem end and blossom end, + And every fleck of russet showing clear. + My instep arch not only keeps the ache, + It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round. + I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend. + And I keep hearing from the cellar bin + The rumbling sound + Of load on load of apples coming in. + For I have had too much + Of apple-picking: I am overtired + Of the great harvest I myself desired. + There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, + Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall. + For all + That struck the earth, + No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, + Went surely to the cider-apple heap + As of no worth. + One can see what will trouble + This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is. + Were he not gone, + The woodchuck could say whether it’s like his + Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, + Or just some human sleep. + + + + +_The Code_ + + + There were three in the meadow by the brook + Gathering up windrows, piling cocks of hay, + With an eye always lifted toward the west + Where an irregular sun-bordered cloud + Darkly advanced with a perpetual dagger + Flickering across its bosom. Suddenly + One helper, thrusting pitchfork in the ground, + Marched himself off the field and home. One stayed. + The town-bred farmer failed to understand. + + ‘What is there wrong?’ + + ‘Something you just now said.’ + + ‘What did I say?’ + + ‘About our taking pains.’ + + ‘To cock the hay?--because it’s going to shower? + I said that more than half an hour ago. + I said it to myself as much as you.’ + + ‘You didn’t know. But James is one big fool. + He thought you meant to find fault with his work. + That’s what the average farmer would have meant. + James would take time, of course, to chew it over + Before he acted: he’s just got round to act.’ + + ‘He is a fool if that’s the way he takes me.’ + + ‘Don’t let it bother you. You’ve found out something + The hand that knows his business won’t be told + To do work better or faster--those two things. + I’m as particular as anyone: + Most likely I’d have served you just the same. + But I know you don’t understand our ways. + You were just talking what was in your mind, + What was in all our minds, and you weren’t hinting. + Tell you a story of what happened once: + I was up here in Salem at a man’s + Named Sanders with a gang of four or five + Doing the haying. No one liked the boss. + He was one of the kind sports call a spider, + All wiry arms and legs that spread out wavy + From a humped body nigh as big’s a biscuit. + But work! that man could work, especially + If by so doing he could get more work + Out of his hired help. I’m not denying + He was hard on himself. I couldn’t find + That he kept any hours--not for himself. + Daylight and lantern-light were one to him: + I’ve heard him pounding in the barn all night. + But what he liked was someone to encourage. + Them that he couldn’t lead he’d get behind + And drive, the way you can, you know, in mowing-- + Keep at their heels and threaten to mow their legs off. + I’d seen about enough of his bulling tricks + (We call that bulling). I’d been watching him. + So when he paired off with me in the hay field + To load the load, thinks I, Look out for trouble. + I built the load and topped it off; old Sanders + Combed it down with a rake and says, “O. K.” + Everything went well till we reached the barn + With a big jag to empty in a bay. + You understand that meant the easy job + For the man up on top of throwing _down_ + The hay and rolling it off wholesale, + Where on a mow it would have been slow lifting. + You wouldn’t think a fellow’d need much urging + Under those circumstances, would you now? + But the old fool seizes his fork in both hands, + And looking up bewhiskered out of the pit, + Shouts like an army captain, “Let her come!” + Thinks I, D’ye mean it? “What was that you said?” + I asked out loud, so’s there’d be no mistake, + “Did you say, Let her come?” “Yes, let her come.” + He said it over, but he said it softer. + Never you say a thing like that to a man, + Not if he values what he is. God, I’d as soon + Murdered him as left out his middle name. + I’d built the load and knew right where to find it. + Two or three forkfuls I picked lightly round for + Like meditating, and then I just dug in + And dumped the rackful on him in ten lots. + I looked over the side once in the dust + And caught sight of him treading-water-like. + Keeping his head above. “Damn ye,” I says, + “That gets ye!” He squeaked like a squeezed rat. + That was the last I saw or heard of him. + I cleaned the rack and drove out to cool off. + As I sat mopping hayseed from my neck, + And sort of waiting to be asked about it, + One of the boys sings out, “Where’s the old man?” + “I left him in the barn under the hay. + If ye want him, ye can go and dig him out.” + They realized from the way I swobbed my neck + More than was needed something must be up. + They headed for the barn; I stayed where I was. + They told me afterward. First they forked hay, + A lot of it, out into the barn floor. + Nothing! They listened for him. Not a rustle. + I guess they thought I’d spiked him in the temple + Before I buried him, or I couldn’t have managed. + They excavated more. “Go keep his wife + Out of the barn.” Someone looked in a window, + And curse me if he wasn’t in the kitchen + Slumped way down in a chair, with both his feet + Against the stove, the hottest day that summer. + He looked so clean disgusted from behind + There was no one that dared to stir him up, + Or let him know that he was being looked at. + Apparently I hadn’t buried him + (I may have knocked him down); but my just trying + To bury him had hurt his dignity. + He had gone to the house so’s not to meet me. + He kept away from us all afternoon. + We tended to his hay. We saw him out + After a while picking peas in his garden: + He couldn’t keep away from doing something.’ + + ‘Weren’t you relieved to find he wasn’t dead?’ + + ‘No! and yet I don’t know--it’s hard to say. + I went about to kill him fair enough.’ + + ‘You took an awkward way. Did he discharge you?’ + + ‘Discharge me? No! He knew I did just right.’ + + + + +_The Generations of Men_ + + + A governor it was proclaimed this time, + When all who would come seeking in New Hampshire + Ancestral memories might come together. + And those of the name Stark gathered in Bow, + A rock-strewn town where farming has fallen off, + And sprout-lands flourish where the axe has gone. + Someone had literally run to earth + In an old cellar hole in a by-road + The origin of all the family there. + Thence they were sprung, so numerous a tribe + That now not all the houses left in town + Made shift to shelter them without the help + Of here and there a tent in grove and orchard. + They were at Bow, but that was not enough: + Nothing would do but they must fix a day + To stand together on the crater’s verge + That turned them on the world, and try to fathom + The past and get some strangeness out of it. + But rain spoiled all. The day began uncertain, + With clouds low trailing and moments of rain that misted. + The young folk held some hope out to each other + Till well toward noon when the storm settled down + With a swish in the grass. ‘What if the others + Are there,’ they said. ‘It isn’t going to rain.’ + Only one from a farm not far away + Strolled thither, not expecting he would find + Anyone else, but out of idleness. + One, and one other, yes, for there were two. + The second round the curving hillside road + Was a girl; and she halted some way off + To reconnoitre, and then made up her mind + At least to pass by and see who he was, + And perhaps hear some word about the weather. + This was some Stark she didn’t know. He nodded. + ‘No fête to-day,’ he said. + + ‘It looks that way.’ + + She swept the heavens, turning on her heel. + ‘I only idled down.’ + + ‘I idled down.’ + + Provision there had been for just such meeting + Of stranger cousins, in a family tree + Drawn on a sort of passport with the branch + Of the one bearing it done in detail-- + Some zealous one’s laborious device. + She made a sudden movement toward her bodice, + As one who clasps her heart. They laughed together. + ‘Stark?’ he inquired. ‘No matter for the proof.’ + + ‘Yes, Stark. And you?’ + + ‘I’m Stark.’ He drew his passport. + + ‘You know we might not be and still be cousins: + The town is full of Chases, Lowes, and Baileys, + All claiming some priority in Starkness. + My mother was a Lane, yet might have married + Anyone upon earth and still her children + Would have been Starks, and doubtless here to-day.’ + + ‘You riddle with your genealogy + Like a Viola. I don’t follow you.’ + + ‘I only mean my mother was a Stark + Several times over, and by marrying father + No more than brought us back into the name.’ + + ‘One ought not to be thrown into confusion + By a plain statement of relationship, + But I own what you say makes my head spin. + You take my card--you seem so good at such things-- + And see if you can reckon our cousinship. + Why not take seats here on the cellar wall + And dangle feet among the raspberry vines?’ + + ‘Under the shelter of the family tree.’ + + ‘Just so--that ought to be enough protection.’ + + ‘Not from the rain. I think it’s going to rain.’ + + ‘It’s raining.’ + + ‘No, it’s misting; let’s be fair. + Does the rain seem to you to cool the eyes?’ + + The situation was like this: the road + Bowed outward on the mountain half-way up, + And disappeared and ended not far off. + No one went home that way. The only house + Beyond where they were was a shattered seedpod + And below roared a brook hidden in trees, + The sound of which was silence for the place. + This he sat listening to till she gave judgment. + + ‘On father’s side, it seems, we’re--let me see--’ + + ‘Don’t be too technical.--You have three cards.’ + + ‘Four cards, one yours, three mine, one for each branch + Of the Stark family I’m a member of.’ + + ‘D’you know a person so related to herself + Is supposed to be mad.’ + + ‘I may be mad.’ + + ‘You look so, sitting out here in the rain + Studying genealogy with me + You never saw before. What will we come to + With all this pride of ancestry, we Yankees? + I think we’re all mad. Tell me why we’re here + Drawn into town about this cellar hole + Like wild geese on a lake before a storm? + What do we see in such a hole, I wonder.’ + + ‘The Indians had a myth of Chicamoztoc, + Which means The Seven Caves that We Came out of. + This is the pit from which we Starks were digged.’ + + ‘You must be learned. That’s what you see in it?’ + + ‘And what do you see?’ + + ‘Yes, what _do_ I see? + First let me look. I see raspberry vines--’ + + ‘Oh, if you’re going to use your eyes, just hear + What _I_ see. It’s a little, little boy, + As pale and dim as a match flame in the sun; + He’s groping in the cellar after jam, + He thinks it’s dark and it’s flooded with daylight.’ + + ‘He’s nothing. Listen. When I lean like this + I can make out old Grandsir Stark distinctly,-- + With his pipe in his mouth and his brown jug-- + Bless you, it isn’t Grandsir Stark, it’s Granny, + But the pipe’s there and smoking and the jug. + She’s after cider, the old girl, she’s thirsty; + Here’s hoping she gets her drink and gets out safely.’ + + ‘Tell me about her. Does she look like me?’ + + ‘She should, shouldn’t she, you’re so many times + Over descended from her. I believe + She does look like you. Stay the way you are. + The nose is just the same, and so’s the chin-- + Making allowance, making due allowance.’ + + ‘You poor, dear, great, great, great, great Granny!’ + + ‘See that you get her greatness right. Don’t stint her.’ + + ‘Yes, it’s important, though you think it isn’t. + I won’t be teased. But see how wet I am.’ + + ‘Yes, you must go; we can’t stay here for ever. + But wait until I give you a hand up. + A bead of silver water more or less + Strung on your hair won’t hurt your summer looks. + I wanted to try something with the noise + That the brook raises in the empty valley. + We have seen visions--now consult the voices. + Something I must have learned riding in trains + When I was young. I used to use the roar + To set the voices speaking out of it, + Speaking or singing, and the band-music playing. + Perhaps you have the art of what I mean. + I’ve never listened in among the sounds + That a brook makes in such a wild descent. + It ought to give a purer oracle.’ + + ‘It’s as you throw a picture on a screen: + The meaning of it all is out of you; + The voices give you what you wish to hear.’ + + ‘Strangely, it’s anything they wish to give.’ + + ‘Then I don’t know. It must be strange enough. + I wonder if it’s not your make-believe. + What do you think you’re like to hear to-day?’ + + ‘From the sense of our having been together-- + But why take time for what I’m like to hear? + I’ll tell you what the voices really say. + You will do very well right where you are + A little longer. I mustn’t feel too hurried, + Or I can’t give myself to hear the voices.’ + + ‘Is this some trance you are withdrawing into?’ + + ‘You must be very still; you mustn’t talk.’ + + ‘I’ll hardly breathe.’ + + ‘The voices seem to say--’ + + ‘I’m waiting.’ + + ‘Don’t! The voices seem to say: + Call her Nausicaa, the unafraid + Of an acquaintance made adventurously.’ + + ‘I let you say that--on consideration.’ + + ‘I don’t see very well how you can help it. + You want the truth. I speak but by the voices. + You see they know I haven’t had your name, + Though what a name should matter between us--’ + + ‘I shall suspect--’ + + ‘Be good. The voices say: + Call her Nausicaa, and take a timber + That you shall find lies in the cellar charred + Among the raspberries, and hew and shape it + For a door-sill or other corner piece + In a new cottage on the ancient spot. + The life is not yet all gone out of it. + And come and make your summer dwelling here, + And perhaps she will come, still unafraid, + And sit before you in the open door + With flowers in her lap until they fade, + But not come in across the sacred sill--’ + + ‘I wonder where your oracle is tending. + You can see that there’s something wrong with it + Or it would speak in dialect. Whose voice + Does it purport to speak in? Not old Grandsir’s + Nor Granny’s, surely. Call up one of them. + They have best right to be heard in this place.’ + + ‘You seem so partial to our great-grandmother + (Nine times removed. Correct me if I err.) + You will be likely to regard as sacred + Anything she may say. But let me warn you, + Folks in her day were given to plain speaking. + You think you’d best tempt her at such a time?’ + + ‘It rests with us always to cut her off.’ + + ‘Well then, it’s Granny speaking: “I dunnow! + Mebbe I’m wrong to take it as I do. + There ain’t no names quite like the old ones though, + Nor never will be to my way of thinking. + One mustn’t bear too hard on the new comers, + But there’s a dite too many of them for comfort. + I should feel easier if I could see + More of the salt wherewith they’re to be salted. + Son, you do as you’re told! You take the timber-- + It’s as sound as the day when it was cut-- + And begin over--” There, she’d better stop. + You can see what is troubling Granny, though. + But don’t you think we sometimes make too much + Of the old stock? What counts is the ideals, + And those will bear some keeping still about.’ + + ‘I can see we are going to be good friends.’ + + ‘I like your “going to be.” You said just now + It’s going to rain.’ + + ‘I know, and it was raining. + I let you say all that. But I must go now.’ + + ‘You let me say it? on consideration? + How shall we say good-bye in such a case?’ + + ‘How shall we?’ + + ‘Will you leave the way to me?’ + + ‘No, I don’t trust your eyes. You’ve said enough. + Now give me your hand up.--Pick me that flower.’ + + ‘Where shall we meet again?’ + + ‘Nowhere but here + Once more before we meet elsewhere.’ + + ‘In rain?’ + + ‘It ought to be in rain. Sometime in rain. + In rain to-morrow, shall we, if it rains? + But if we must, in sunshine.’ So she went. + + + + +_The Housekeeper_ + + + I let myself in at the kitchen door. + + ‘It’s you,’ she said. ‘I can’t get up. Forgive me + Not answering your knock. I can no more + Let people in than I can keep them out. + I’m getting too old for my size, I tell them. + My fingers are about all I’ve the use of + So’s to take any comfort. I can sew: + I help out with this beadwork what I can.’ + + ‘That’s a smart pair of pumps you’re beading there. + Who are they for?’ + + ‘You mean?--oh, for some miss. + I can’t keep track of other people’s daughters. + Lord, if I were to dream of everyone + Whose shoes I primped to dance in!’ + + ‘And where’s John?’ + + ‘Haven’t you seen him? Strange what set you off + To come to his house when he’s gone to yours. + You can’t have passed each other. I know what: + He must have changed his mind and gone to Garland’s. + He won’t be long in that case. You can wait. + Though what good you can be, or anyone-- + It’s gone so far. You’ve heard? Estelle’s run off.’ + + ‘Yes, what’s it all about? When did she go?’ + + ‘Two weeks since.’ + + ‘She’s in earnest, it appears.’ + + ‘I’m sure she won’t come back. She’s hiding somewhere. + I don’t know where myself. John thinks I do. + He thinks I only have to say the word, + And she’ll come back. But, bless you, I’m her mother-- + I can’t talk to her, and, Lord, if I could!’ + + ‘It will go hard with John. What will he do? + He can’t find anyone to take her place.’ + + ‘Oh, if you ask me that, what _will_ he do? + He gets some sort of bakeshop meals together, + With me to sit and tell him everything, + What’s wanted and how much and where it is. + But when I’m gone--of course I can’t stay here: + Estelle’s to take me when she’s settled down. + He and I only hinder one another. + I tell them they can’t get me through the door, though: + I’ve been built in here like a big church organ. + We’ve been here fifteen years.’ + + ‘That’s a long time + To live together and then pull apart. + How do you see him living when you’re gone? + Two of you out will leave an empty house.’ + + ‘I don’t just see him living many years, + Left here with nothing but the furniture. + I hate to think of the old place when we’re gone, + With the brook going by below the yard, + And no one here but hens blowing about. + If he could sell the place, but then, he can’t: + No one will ever live on it again. + It’s too run down. This is the last of it. + What I think he will do, is let things smash. + He’ll sort of swear the time away. He’s awful! + I never saw a man let family troubles + Make so much difference in his man’s affairs. + He’s just dropped everything. He’s like a child. + I blame his being brought up by his mother. + He’s got hay down that’s been rained on three times. + He hoed a little yesterday for me: + I thought the growing things would do him good. + Something went wrong. I saw him throw the hoe + Sky-high with both hands. I can see it now-- + Come here--I’ll show you--in that apple tree. + That’s no way for a man to do at his age: + He’s fifty-five, you know, if he’s a day.’ + + ‘Aren’t you afraid of him? What’s that gun for?’ + + ‘Oh, that’s been there for hawks since chicken-time. + John Hall touch me! Not if he knows his friends. + I’ll say that for him, John’s no threatener + Like some men folk. No one’s afraid of him; + All is, he’s made up his mind not to stand + What he has got to stand.’ + + ‘Where is Estelle? + Couldn’t one talk to her? What does she say? + You say you don’t know where she is.’ + + ‘Nor want to! + She thinks if it was bad to live with him, + It must be right to leave him.’ + + ‘Which is wrong!’ + + ‘Yes, but he should have married her.’ + + ‘I know.’ + + ‘The strain’s been too much for her all these years: + I can’t explain it any other way. + It’s different with a man, at least with John: + He knows he’s kinder than the run of men. + Better than married ought to be as good + As married--that’s what he has always said. + I know the way he’s felt--but all the same!’ + + ‘I wonder why he doesn’t marry her + And end it.’ + + ‘Too late now: she wouldn’t have him. + He’s given her time to think of something else. + That’s his mistake. The dear knows my interest + Has been to keep the thing from breaking up. + This is a good home: I don’t ask for better. + But when I’ve said, “Why shouldn’t they be married,” + He’d say, “Why should they?” no more words than that.’ + + ‘And after all why should they? John’s been fair + I take it. What was his was always hers. + There was no quarrel about property.’ + + ‘Reason enough, there was no property. + A friend or two as good as own the farm, + Such as it is. It isn’t worth the mortgage.’ + + ‘I mean Estelle has always held the purse.’ + + ‘The rights of that are harder to get at. + I guess Estelle and I have filled the purse. + ’Twas we let him have money, not he us. + John’s a bad farmer. I’m not blaming him. + Take it year in, year out, he doesn’t make much. + We came here for a home for me, you know, + Estelle to do the housework for the board + Of both of us. But look how it turns out: + She seems to have the housework, and besides + Half of the outdoor work, though as for that, + He’d say she does it more because she likes it. + You see our pretty things are all outdoors. + Our hens and cows and pigs are always better + Than folks like us have any business with. + Farmers around twice as well off as we + Haven’t as good. They don’t go with the farm. + One thing you can’t help liking about John, + He’s fond of nice things--too fond, some would say. + But Estelle don’t complain: she’s like him there. + She wants our hens to be the best there are. + You never saw this room before a show, + Full of lank, shivery, half-drowned birds + In separate coops, having their plumage done. + The smell of the wet feathers in the heat! + You spoke of John’s not being safe to stay with. + You don’t know what a gentle lot we are: + We wouldn’t hurt a hen! You ought to see us + Moving a flock of hens from place to place. + We’re not allowed to take them upside down, + All we can hold together by the legs. + Two at a time’s the rule, one on each arm, + No matter how far and how many times + We have to go.’ + + ‘You mean that’s John’s idea.’ + + ‘And we live up to it; or I don’t know + What childishness he wouldn’t give way to. + He manages to keep the upper hand + On his own farm. He’s boss. But as to hens: + We fence our flowers in and the hens range. + Nothing’s too good for them. We say it pays. + John likes to tell the offers he has had, + Twenty for this cock, twenty-five for that. + He never takes the money. If they’re worth + That much to sell, they’re worth as much to keep. + Bless you, it’s all expense, though. Reach me down + The little tin box on the cupboard shelf, + The upper shelf, the tin box. That’s the one. + I’ll show you. Here you are.’ + + ‘What’s this?’ + + ‘A bill-- + For fifty dollars for one Langshang cock-- + Receipted. And the cock is in the yard.’ + + ‘Not in a glass case, then?’ + + ‘He’d need a tall one: + He can eat off a barrel from the ground. + He’s been in a glass case, as you may say, + The Crystal Palace, London. He’s imported. + John bought him, and we paid the bill with beads-- + Wampum, I call it. Mind, we don’t complain. + But you see, don’t you, we take care of him.’ + + ‘And like it, too. It makes it all the worse.’ + + ‘It seems as if. And that’s not all: he’s helpless + In ways that I can hardly tell you of. + Sometimes he gets possessed to keep accounts + To see where all the money goes so fast. + You know how men will be ridiculous. + But it’s just fun the way he gets bedeviled-- + If he’s untidy now, what will he be--?’ + + ‘It makes it all the worse. You must be blind.’ + + ‘Estelle’s the one. You needn’t talk to me.’ + + ‘Can’t you and I get to the root of it? + What’s the real trouble? What will satisfy her?’ + + ‘It’s as I say: she’s turned from him, that’s all.’ + + ‘But why, when she’s well off? Is it the neighbours, + Being cut off from friends?’ + + ‘We have our friends. + That isn’t it. Folks aren’t afraid of us.’ + + ‘She’s let it worry her. You stood the strain, + And you’re her mother.’ + + ‘But I didn’t always. + I didn’t relish it along at first. + But I got wonted to it. And besides-- + John said I was too old to have grandchildren. + But what’s the use of talking when it’s done? + She won’t come back--it’s worse than that--she can’t.’ + + ‘Why do you speak like that? What do you know? + What do you mean?--she’s done harm to herself?’ + + ‘I mean she’s married--married someone else.’ + + ‘Oho, oho!’ + + ‘You don’t believe me.’ + + ‘Yes, I do, + Only too well. I knew there must be something! + So that was what was back. She’s bad, that’s all!’ + + ‘Bad to get married when she had the chance?’ + + ‘Nonsense! See what she’s done! But who, but who--’ + + ‘Who’d marry her straight out of such a mess? + Say it right out--no matter for her mother. + The man was found. I’d better name no names. + John himself won’t imagine who he is.’ + + ‘Then it’s all up. I think I’ll get away. + You’ll be expecting John. I pity Estelle; + I suppose she deserves some pity, too. + You ought to have the kitchen to yourself + To break it to him. You may have the job.’ + + ‘You needn’t think you’re going to get away. + John’s almost here. I’ve had my eye on someone + Coming down Ryan’s Hill. I thought ’twas him. + Here he is now. This box! Put it away. + And this bill.’ + + ‘What’s the hurry? He’ll unhitch.’ + + ‘No, he won’t, either. He’ll just drop the reins + And turn Doll out to pasture, rig and all. + She won’t get far before the wheels hang up + On something--there’s no harm. See, there he is! + My, but he looks as if he must have heard!’ + + John threw the door wide but he didn’t enter. + ‘How are you, neighbour? Just the man I’m after. + Isn’t it Hell,’ he said. ‘I want to know. + Come out here if you want to hear me talk. + I’ll talk to you, old woman, afterward. + I’ve got some news that maybe isn’t news. + What are they trying to do to me, these two?’ + + ‘Do go along with him and stop his shouting.’ + She raised her voice against the closing door: + ‘Who wants to hear your news, you--dreadful fool?’ + + + + +_The Fear_ + + + A lantern light from deeper in the barn + Shone on a man and woman in the door + And threw their lurching shadows on a house + Near by, all dark in every glossy window. + A horse’s hoof pawed once the hollow floor, + And the back of the gig they stood beside + Moved in a little. The man grasped a wheel, + The woman spoke out sharply, ‘Whoa, stand still! + I saw it just as plain as a white plate,’ + She said, ‘as the light on the dashboard ran + Along the bushes at the roadside--a man’s face. + You _must_ have seen it too.’ + + ‘I didn’t see it. + Are you sure--’ + + ‘Yes, I’m sure!’ + + ‘--it was a face?’ + + ‘Joel, I’ll have to look. I can’t go in, + I can’t, and leave a thing like that unsettled. + Doors locked and curtains drawn will make no difference. + I always have felt strange when we came home + To the dark house after so long an absence, + And the key rattled loudly into place + Seemed to warn someone to be getting out + At one door as we entered at another. + What if I’m right, and someone all the time-- + Don’t hold my arm!’ + + ‘I say it’s someone passing.’ + + ‘You speak as if this were a travelled road. + You forget where we are. What is beyond + That he’d be going to or coming from + At such an hour of night, and on foot too? + What was he standing still for in the bushes?’ + + ‘It’s not so very late--it’s only dark. + There’s more in it than you’re inclined to say. + Did he look like--?’ + + ‘He looked like anyone. + I’ll never rest to-night unless I know. + Give me the lantern.’ + + ‘You don’t want the lantern.’ + + She pushed past him and got it for herself. + + ‘You’re not to come,’ she said. ‘This is my business. + If the time’s come to face it, I’m the one + To put it the right way. He’d never dare-- + Listen! He kicked a stone. Hear that, hear that! + He’s coming towards us. Joel, _go_ in--please. + Hark!--I don’t hear him now. But please go in.’ + + ‘In the first place you can’t make me believe it’s--’ + + ‘It is--or someone else he’s sent to watch. + And now’s the time to have it out with him + While we know definitely where he is. + Let him get off and he’ll be everywhere + Around us, looking out of trees and bushes + Till I sha’n’t dare to set a foot outdoors. + And I can’t stand it. Joel, let me go!’ + + ‘But it’s nonsense to think he’d care enough.’ + + ‘You mean you couldn’t understand his caring. + Oh, but you see he hadn’t had enough-- + Joel, I won’t--I won’t--I promise you. + We mustn’t say hard things. You mustn’t either.’ + + ‘I’ll be the one, if anybody goes! + But you give him the advantage with this light. + What couldn’t he do to us standing here! + And if to see was what he wanted, why + He has seen all there was to see and gone.’ + + He appeared to forget to keep his hold, + But advanced with her as she crossed the grass. + + ‘What do you want?’ she cried to all the dark. + She stretched up tall to overlook the light + That hung in both hands hot against her skirt. + + ‘There’s no one; so you’re wrong,’ he said. + + ‘There is.-- + What do you want?’ she cried, and then herself + Was startled when an answer really came. + + ‘Nothing.’ It came from well along the road. + + She reached a hand to Joel for support: + The smell of scorching woollen made her faint. + + ‘What are you doing round this house at night?’ + + ‘Nothing.’ A pause: there seemed no more to say. + + And then the voice again: ‘You seem afraid. + I saw by the way you whipped up the horse. + I’ll just come forward in the lantern light + And let you see.’ + + ‘Yes, do.--Joel, go back!’ + + She stood her ground against the noisy steps + That came on, but her body rocked a little. + + ‘You see,’ the voice said. + + ‘Oh.’ She looked and looked. + + ‘You don’t see--I’ve a child here by the hand. + A robber wouldn’t have his family with him.’ + + ‘What’s a child doing at this time of night--?’ + + ‘Out walking. Every child should have the memory + Of at least one long-after-bedtime walk. + What, son?’ + + ‘Then I should think you’d try to find + Somewhere to walk--’ + + ‘The highway, as it happens-- + We’re stopping for the fortnight down at Dean’s.’ + + ‘But if that’s all--Joel--you realize-- + You won’t think anything. You understand? + You understand that we have to be careful. + This is a very, very lonely place. + Joel!’ She spoke as if she couldn’t turn. + The swinging lantern lengthened to the ground, + It touched, it struck, it clattered and went out. + + + + +_The Self-Seeker_ + + + ‘Willis, I didn’t want you here to-day: + The lawyer’s coming for the company. + I’m going to sell my soul, or, rather, feet. + Five hundred dollars for the pair, you know.’ + + ‘With you the feet have nearly been the soul; + And if you’re going to sell them to the devil, + I want to see you do it. When’s he coming?’ + + ‘I half suspect you knew, and came on purpose + To try to help me drive a better bargain.’ + + ‘Well, if it’s true! Yours are no common feet. + The lawyer don’t know what it is he’s buying: + So many miles you might have walked you won’t walk. + You haven’t run your forty orchids down. + What does he think?--How _are_ the blessed feet? + The doctor’s sure you’re going to walk again?’ + + ‘He thinks I’ll hobble. It’s both legs and feet.’ + + ‘They must be terrible--I mean to look at.’ + + ‘I haven’t dared to look at them uncovered. + Through the bed blankets I remind myself + Of a starfish laid out with rigid points.’ + + ‘The wonder is it hadn’t been your head.’ + + ‘It’s hard to tell you how I managed it. + When I saw the shaft had me by the coat, + I didn’t try too long to pull away, + Or fumble for my knife to cut away, + I just embraced the shaft and rode it out-- + Till Weiss shut off the water in the wheel-pit. + That’s how I think I didn’t lose my head. + But my legs got their knocks against the ceiling.’ + + ‘Awful. Why didn’t they throw off the belt + Instead of going clear down in the wheel-pit?’ + + ‘They say some time was wasted on the belt-- + Old streak of leather--doesn’t love me much + Because I make him spit fire at my knuckles, + The way Ben Franklin used to make the kite-string. + That must be it. Some days he won’t stay on. + That day a woman couldn’t coax him off. + He’s on his rounds now with his tail in his mouth + Snatched right and left across the silver pulleys. + Everything goes the same without me there. + You can hear the small buzz saws whine, the big saw + Caterwaul to the hills around the village + As they both bite the wood. It’s all our music. + One ought as a good villager to like it. + No doubt it has a sort of prosperous sound, + And it’s our life.’ + + ‘Yes, when it’s not our death.’ + + ‘You make that sound as if it wasn’t so + With everything. What we live by we die by. + I wonder where my lawyer is. His train’s in. + I want this over with; I’m hot and tired.’ + + ‘You’re getting ready to do something foolish.’ + + ‘Watch for him, will you, Will? You let him in. + I’d rather Mrs. Corbin didn’t know; + I’ve boarded here so long, she thinks she owns me. + You’re bad enough to manage without her.’ + + ‘I’m going to be worse instead of better. + You’ve got to tell me how far this is gone: + Have you agreed to any price?’ + + ‘Five hundred. + Five hundred--five--five! One, two, three, four, five. + You needn’t look at me.’ + + ‘I don’t believe you.’ + + ‘I told you, Willis, when you first came in. + Don’t you be hard on me. I have to take + What I can get. You see they have the feet, + Which gives them the advantage in the trade. + I can’t get back the feet in any case.’ + + ‘But your flowers, man, you’re selling out your flowers.’ + + ‘Yes, that’s one way to put it--all the flowers + Of every kind everywhere in this region + For the next forty summers--call it forty. + But I’m not selling those, I’m giving them, + They never earned me so much as one cent: + Money can’t pay me for the loss of them. + No, the five hundred was the sum they named + To pay the doctor’s bill and tide me over. + It’s that or fight, and I don’t want to fight-- + I just want to get settled in my life, + Such as it’s going to be, and know the worst, + Or best--it may not be so bad. The firm + Promise me all the shooks I want to nail.’ + + ‘But what about your flora of the valley?’ + + ‘You have me there. But that--you didn’t think + That was worth money to me? Still I own + It goes against me not to finish it + For the friends it might bring me. By the way, + I had a letter from Burroughs--did I tell you?-- + About my _Cyprepedium reginæ_; + He says it’s not reported so far north. + There! there’s the bell. He’s rung. But you go down + And bring him up, and don’t let Mrs. Corbin.-- + Oh, well, we’ll soon be through with it. I’m tired.’ + + Willis brought up besides the Boston lawyer + A little barefoot girl who in the noise + Of heavy footsteps in the old frame house, + And baritone importance of the lawyer, + Stood for a while unnoticed with her hands + Shyly behind her. + + ‘Well, and how is Mister--’ + + The lawyer was already in his satchel + As if for papers that might bear the name + He hadn’t at command. ‘You must excuse me, + I dropped in at the mill and was detained.’ + + ‘Looking round, I suppose,’ said Willis. + + ‘Yes, + Well, yes.’ + + ‘Hear anything that might prove useful?’ + + The Broken One saw Anne. ‘Why, here is Anne. + What do you want, dear? Come, stand by the bed; + Tell me what is it?’ Anne just wagged her dress + With both hands held behind her. ‘Guess,’ she said. + + ‘Oh, guess which hand? My, my! Once on a time + I knew a lovely way to tell for certain + By looking in the ears. But I forget it. + Er, let me see. I think I’ll take the right. + That’s sure to be right even if it’s wrong. + Come, hold it out. Don’t change.--A Ram’s Horn orchid! + A Ram’s Horn! What would I have got, I wonder, + If I had chosen left. Hold out the left. + Another Ram’s Horn! Where did you find those, + Under what beech tree, on what woodchuck’s knoll?’ + + Anne looked at the large lawyer at her side, + And thought she wouldn’t venture on so much. + + ‘Were there no others?’ + + ‘There were four or five. + I knew you wouldn’t let me pick them all.’ + + ‘I wouldn’t--so I wouldn’t. You’re the girl! + You see Anne has her lesson learned by heart.’ + + ‘I wanted there should be some there next year.’ + + ‘Of course you did. You left the rest for seed, + And for the backwoods woodchuck. You’re the girl! + A Ram’s Horn orchid seedpod for a woodchuck + Sounds something like. Better than farmer’s beans + To a discriminating appetite, + Though the Ram’s Horn is seldom to be had + In bushel lots--doesn’t come on the market. + But, Anne, I’m troubled; have you told me all? + You’re hiding something. That’s as bad as lying. + You ask this lawyer man. And it’s not safe + With a lawyer at hand to find you out. + Nothing is hidden from some people, Anne. + You don’t tell me that where you found a Ram’s Horn + You didn’t find a Yellow Lady’s Slipper. + What did I tell you? What? I’d blush, I would. + Don’t you defend yourself. If it was there, + Where is it now, the Yellow Lady’s Slipper?’ + + ‘Well, wait--it’s common--it’s too _common_.’ + + ‘Common? + The Purple Lady’s Slipper’s commoner.’ + + ‘I didn’t bring a Purple Lady’s Slipper + To _You_--to you I mean--they’re both too common.’ + + The lawyer gave a laugh among his papers + As if with some idea that she had scored. + + ‘I’ve broken Anne of gathering bouquets. + It’s not fair to the child. It can’t be helped though: + Pressed into service means pressed out of shape. + Somehow I’ll make it right with her--she’ll see. + She’s going to do my scouting in the field, + Over stone walls and all along a wood + And by a river bank for water flowers, + The floating Heart, with small leaf like a heart, + And at the _sinus_ under water a fist + Of little fingers all kept down but one, + And that thrust up to blossom in the sun + As if to say, “You! You’re the Heart’s desire.” + Anne has a way with flowers to take the place + Of that she’s lost: she goes down on one knee + And lifts their faces by the chin to hers + And says their names, and leaves them where they are.’ + + The lawyer wore a watch the case of which + Was cunningly devised to make a noise + Like a small pistol when he snapped it shut + At such a time as this. He snapped it now. + + ‘Well, Anne, go, dearie. Our affair will wait. + The lawyer man is thinking of his train. + He wants to give me lots and lots of money + Before he goes, because I hurt myself, + And it may take him I don’t know how long. + But put our flowers in water first. Will, help her: + The pitcher’s too full for her. There’s no cup? + Just hook them on the inside of the pitcher. + Now run.--Get out your documents! You see + I have to keep on the good side of Anne. + I’m a great boy to think of number one. + And you can’t blame me in the place I’m in. + Who will take care of my necessities + Unless I do?’ + + ‘A pretty interlude,’ + The lawyer said. ‘I’m sorry, but my train-- + Luckily terms are all agreed upon. + You only have to sign your name. Right--there.’ + + ‘You, Will, stop making faces. Come round here + Where you can’t make them. What is it you want? + I’ll put you out with Anne. Be good or go.’ + + ‘You don’t mean you will sign that thing unread?’ + + ‘Make yourself useful then, and read it for me. + Isn’t it something I have seen before?’ + + ‘You’ll find it is. Let your friend look at it.’ + + ‘Yes, but all that takes time, and I’m as much + In haste to get it over with as you. + But read it, read it. That’s right, draw the curtain: + Half the time I don’t know what’s troubling me.-- + What do you say, Will? Don’t you be a fool, + You, crumpling folkses legal documents. + Out with it if you’ve any real objection.’ + + ‘Five hundred dollars!’ + + ‘What would you think right?’ + + ‘A thousand wouldn’t be a cent too much; + You know it, Mr. Lawyer. The sin is + Accepting anything before he knows + Whether he’s ever going to walk again. + It smells to me like a dishonest trick.’ + + ‘I think--I think--from what I heard to-day-- + And saw myself--he would be ill-advised--’ + + ‘What did you hear, for instance?’ Willis said. + + ‘Now the place where the accident occurred--’ + + The Broken One was twisted in his bed. + ‘This is between you two apparently. + Where I come in is what I want to know. + You stand up to it like a pair of cocks. + Go outdoors if you want to fight. Spare me. + When you come back, I’ll have the papers signed. + Will pencil do? Then, please, your fountain pen. + One of you hold my head up from the pillow.’ + + Willis flung off the bed. ‘I wash my hands-- + I’m no match--no, and don’t pretend to be--’ + + The lawyer gravely capped his fountain pen. + ‘You’re doing the wise thing: you won’t regret it. + We’re very sorry for you.’ + + Willis sneered: + ‘Who’s _we_?--some stockholders in Boston? + I’ll go outdoors, by gad, and won’t come back.’ + + ‘Willis, bring Anne back with you when you come. + Yes. Thanks for caring. Don’t mind Will: he’s savage. + He thinks you ought to pay me for my flowers. + You don’t know what I mean about the flowers. + Don’t stop to try to now. You’ll miss your train. + Good-bye.’ He flung his arms around his face. + + + + +_The Wood-Pile_ + + + Out walking in the frozen swamp one grey day, + I paused and said, ‘I will turn back from here. + No, I will go on farther--and we shall see.’ + The hard snow held me, save where now and then + One foot went through. The view was all in lines + Straight up and down of tall slim trees + Too much alike to mark or name a place by + So as to say for certain I was here + Or somewhere else: I was just far from home. + A small bird flew before me. He was careful + To put a tree between us when he lighted, + And say no word to tell me who he was + Who was so foolish as to think what _he_ thought. + He thought that I was after him for a feather-- + The white one in his tail; like one who takes + Everything said as personal to himself. + One flight out sideways would have undeceived him. + And then there was a pile of wood for which + I forgot him and let his little fear + Carry him off the way I might have gone, + Without so much as wishing him good-night. + He went behind it to make his last stand. + It was a cord of maple, cut and split + And piled--and measured, four by four by eight. + And not another like it could I see. + No runner tracks in this year’s snow looped near it. + And it was older sure than this year’s cutting, + Or even last year’s or the year’s before. + The wood was grey and the bark warping off it + And the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis + Had wound strings round and round it like a bundle. + What held it though on one side was a tree + Still growing, and on one a stake and prop, + These latter about to fall. I thought that only + Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks + Could so forget his handiwork on which + He spent himself, the labour of his axe, + And leave it there far from a useful fireplace + To warm the frozen swamp as best it could + With the slow smokeless burning of decay. + + + + +_Good Hours_ + + + I had for my winter evening walk-- + No one at all with whom to talk, + But I had the cottages in a row + Up to their shining eyes in snow. + + And I thought I had the folk within: + I had the sound of a violin; + I had a glimpse through curtain laces + Of youthful forms and youthful faces. + + I had such company outward bound. + I went till there were no cottages found. + I turned and repented, but coming back + I saw no window but that was black. + + Over the snow my creaking feet + Disturbed the slumbering village street + Like profanation, by your leave, + At ten o’clock of a winter eve. + + + + +MOUNTAIN INTERVAL + + + + +_The Road Not Taken_ + + + Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, + And sorry I could not travel both + And be one traveler, long I stood + And looked down one as far as I could + To where it bent in the undergrowth; + + Then took the other, as just as fair, + And having perhaps the better claim, + Because it was grassy and wanted wear; + Though as for that the passing there + Had worn them really about the same, + + And both that morning equally lay + In leaves no step had trodden black. + Oh, I kept the first for another day! + Yet knowing how way leads on to way, + I doubted if I should ever come back. + + I shall be telling this with a sigh + Somewhere ages and ages hence: + Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-- + I took the one less traveled by, + And that has made all the difference. + + + + +_Christmas Trees_ + +A CHRISTMAS CIRCULAR LETTER + + + The city had withdrawn into itself + And left at last the country to the country; + When between whirls of snow not come to lie + And whirls of foliage not yet laid, there drove + A stranger to our yard, who looked the city, + Yet did in country fashion in that there + He sat and waited till he drew us out + A-buttoning coats to ask him who he was. + He proved to be the city come again + To look for something it had left behind + And could not do without and keep its Christmas. + He asked if I would sell my Christmas trees; + My woods--the young fir balsams like a place + Where houses all are churches and have spires. + I hadn’t thought of them as Christmas trees. + I doubt if I was tempted for a moment + To sell them off their feet to go in cars + And leave the slope behind the house all bare, + Where the sun shines now no warmer than the moon. + I’d hate to have them know it if I was. + Yet more I’d hate to hold my trees except + As others hold theirs or refuse for them, + Beyond the time of profitable growth, + The trial by market everything must come to. + I dallied so much with the thought of selling. + Then whether from mistaken courtesy + And fear of seeming short of speech, or whether + From hope of hearing good of what was mine, + I said, ‘There aren’t enough to be worth while.’ + + ‘I could soon tell how many they would cut, + You let me look them over.’ + + ‘You could look. + But don’t expect I’m going to let you have them.’ + Pasture they spring in, some in clumps too close + That lop each other of boughs, but not a few + Quite solitary and having equal boughs + All round and round. The latter he nodded ‘Yes’ to, + Or paused to say beneath some lovelier one, + With a buyer’s moderation, ‘That would do.’ + I thought so too, but wasn’t there to say so. + We climbed the pasture on the south, crossed over, + And came down on the north. + + He said, ‘A thousand.’ + + ‘A thousand Christmas trees!--at what apiece?’ + + He felt some need of softening that to me: + ‘A thousand trees would come to thirty dollars.’ + + Then I was certain I had never meant + To let him have them. Never show surprise! + But thirty dollars seemed so small beside + The extent of pasture I should strip, three cents + (For that was all they figured out apiece), + Three cents so small beside the dollar friends + I should be writing to within the hour + Would pay in cities for good trees like those, + Regular vestry-trees whole Sunday Schools + Could hang enough on to pick off enough. + A thousand Christmas trees I didn’t know I had! + Worth three cents more to give away than sell, + As may be shown by a simple calculation. + Too bad I couldn’t lay one in a letter. + I can’t help wishing I could send you one, + In wishing you herewith a Merry Christmas. + + + + +_An Old Man’s Winter Night_ + + + All out of doors looked darkly in at him + Through the thin frost, almost in separate stars, + That gathers on the pane in empty rooms. + What kept his eyes from giving back the gaze + Was the lamp tilted near them in his hand. + What kept him from remembering the need + That brought him to that creaking room was age. + He stood with barrels round him--at a loss. + And having scared the cellar under him + In clomping there, he scared it once again + In clomping off;--and scared the outer night, + Which has its sounds, familiar, like the roar + Of trees and crack of branches, common things, + But nothing so like beating on a box. + A light he was to no one but himself + Where now he sat, concerned with he knew what, + A quiet light, and then not even that. + He consigned to the moon, such as she was, + So late-arising, to the broken moon + As better than the sun in any case + For such a charge, his snow upon the roof, + His icicles along the wall to keep; + And slept. The log that shifted with a jolt + Once in the stove, disturbed him and he shifted, + And eased his heavy breathing, but still slept. + One aged man--one man--can’t fill a house, + A farm, a countryside, or if he can, + It’s thus he does it of a winter night. + + + + +_The Exposed Nest_ + + + You were forever finding some new play. + So when I saw you down on hands and knees + In the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay, + Trying, I thought, to set it up on end, + I went to show you how to make it stay, + If that was your idea, against the breeze, + And, if you asked me, even help pretend + To make it root again and grow afresh. + But ’twas no make-believe with you to-day, + Nor was the grass itself your real concern, + Though I found your hand full of wilted fern, + Steel-bright June-grass, and blackening heads of clover. + ’Twas a nest full of young birds on the ground + The cutter-bar had just gone champing over + (Miraculously without tasting flesh) + And left defenseless to the heat and light. + You wanted to restore them to their right + Of something interposed between their sight + And too much world at once--could means be found. + The way the nest-full every time we stirred + Stood up to us as to a mother-bird + Whose coming home has been too long deferred, + Made me ask would the mother-bird return + And care for them in such a change of scene + And might our meddling make her more afraid. + That was a thing we could not wait to learn. + We saw the risk we took in doing good, + But dared not spare to do the best we could + Though harm should come of it; so built the screen + You had begun, and gave them back their shade. + All this to prove we cared. Why is there then + No more to tell? We turned to other things. + I haven’t any memory--have you?-- + Of ever coming to the place again + To see if the birds lived the first night through, + And so at last to learn to use their wings. + + + + +_A Patch of Old Snow_ + + + There’s a patch of old snow in a corner + That I should have guessed + Was a blow-away paper the rain + Had brought to rest. + + It is speckled with grime as if + Small print overspread it, + The news of a day I’ve forgotten-- + If I ever read it. + + + + +_In the Home Stretch_ + + + She stood against the kitchen sink, and looked + Over the sink out through a dusty window + At weeds the water from the sink made tall. + She wore her cape; her hat was in her hand. + Behind her was confusion in the room, + Of chairs turned upside down to sit like people + In other chairs, and something, come to look, + For every room a house has--parlor, bed-room, + And dining-room--thrown pell-mell in the kitchen. + And now and then a smudged, infernal face + Looked in a door behind her and addressed + Her back. She always answered without turning. + + ‘Where will I put this walnut bureau, lady?’ + + ‘Put it on top of something that’s on top + Of something else,’ she laughed. ‘Oh, put it where + You can to-night, and go. It’s almost dark; + You must be getting started back to town.’ + + Another blackened face thrust in and looked + And smiled, and when she did not turn, spoke gently, + ‘What are you seeing out the window, _lady_?’ + + ‘Never was I beladied so before. + Would evidence of having been called lady + More than so many times make me a lady + In common law, I wonder.’ + + ‘But I ask, + What are you seeing out the window, lady?’ + + ‘What I’ll be seeing more of in the years + To come as here I stand and go the round + Of many plates with towels many times.’ + + ‘And what is that? You only put me off.’ + + ‘Rank weeds that love the water from the dish-pan + More than some women like the dish-pan, Joe; + A little stretch of mowing-field for you; + Not much of that until I come to woods + That end all. And it’s scarce enough to call + A view.’ + + ‘And yet you think you like it, dear?’ + + ‘That’s what you’re so concerned to know! You hope + I like it. Bang goes something big away + Off there upstairs. The very tread of men + As great as those is shattering to the frame + Of such a little house. Once left alone, + You and I, dear, will go with softer steps + Up and down stairs and through the rooms, and none + But sudden winds that snatch them from our hands + Will ever slam the doors.’ + + ‘I think you see + More than you like to own to out that window.’ + + ‘No; for besides the things I tell you of, + I only see the years. They come and go + In alternation with the weeds, the field, + The wood.’ + + ‘What kind of years?’ + + ‘Why, latter years-- + Different from early years.’ + + ‘I see them, too. + You didn’t count them?’ + + ‘No, the further off + So ran together that I didn’t try to. + It can scarce be that they would be in number + We’d care to know, for we are not young now. + And bang goes something else away off there. + It sounds as if it were the men went down, + And every crash meant one less to return + To lighted city streets we, too, have known, + But now are giving up for country darkness.’ + + ‘Come from that window where you see too much, + And take a livelier view of things from here. + They’re going. Watch this husky swarming up + Over the wheel into the sky-high seat, + Lighting his pipe now, squinting down his nose + At the flame burning downward as he sucks it.’ + + ‘See how it makes his nose-side bright, a proof + How dark it’s getting. Can you tell what time + It is by that? Or by the moon? The new moon! + What shoulder did I see her over? Neither. + A wire she is of silver, as new as we + To everything. Her light won’t last us long. + It’s something, though, to know we’re going to have her + Night after night and stronger every night + To see us through our first two weeks. But, Joe, + The stove! Before they go! Knock on the window; + Ask them to help you get it on its feet. + We stand here dreaming. Hurry! Call them back!’ + + ‘They’re not gone yet.’ + + ‘We’ve got to have the stove, + Whatever else we want for. And a light. + Have we a piece of candle if the lamp + And oil are buried out of reach?’ + + Again + The house was full of tramping, and the dark, + Door-filling men burst in and seized the stove. + A cannon-mouth-like hole was in the wall, + To which they set it true by eye; and then + Came up the jointed stovepipe in their hands, + So much too light and airy for their strength + It almost seemed to come ballooning up, + Slipping from clumsy clutches toward the ceiling. + ‘A fit!’ said one, and banged a stovepipe shoulder. + ‘It’s good luck when you move in to begin + With good luck with your stovepipe. Never mind, + It’s not so bad in the country, settled down, + When people’re getting on in life. You’ll like it.’ + Joe said: ‘You big boys ought to find a farm, + And make good farmers, and leave other fellows + The city work to do. There’s not enough + For everybody as it is in there.’ + ‘God!’ one said wildly, and, when no one spoke: + ‘Say that to Jimmy here. He needs a farm.’ + But Jimmy only made his jaw recede + Fool-like, and rolled his eyes as if to say + He saw himself a farmer. Then there was a French boy + Who said with seriousness that made them laugh, + ‘Ma friend, you ain’t know what it is you’re ask.’ + He doffed his cap and held it with both hands + Across his chest to make as ’twere a bow: + ‘We’re giving you our chances on de farm.’ + And then they all turned to with deafening boots + And put each other bodily out of the house. + ‘Good-bye to them! We puzzle them. They think-- + I don’t know what they think we see in what + They leave us to: that pasture slope that seems + The back some farm presents us; and your woods + To northward from your window at the sink, + Waiting to steal a step on us whenever + We drop our eyes or turn to other things, + As in the game “Ten-step” the children play.’ + + ‘Good boys they seemed, and let them love the city. + All they could say was “God!” when you proposed + Their coming out and making useful farmers.’ + + ‘Did they make something lonesome go through you? + It would take more than them to sicken you-- + Us of our bargain. But they left us so + As to our fate, like fools past reasoning with. + They almost shook _me_.’ + + ‘It’s all so much + What we have always wanted, I confess + It’s seeming bad for a moment makes it seem + Even worse still, and so on down, down, down. + It’s nothing; it’s their leaving us at dusk. + I never bore it well when people went. + The first night after guests have gone, the house + Seems haunted or exposed. I always take + A personal interest in the locking up + At bedtime; but the strangeness soon wears off.’ + He fetched a dingy lantern from behind + A door. ‘There’s that we didn’t lose! And these!’-- + Some matches he unpocketed. ‘For food-- + The meals we’ve had no one can take from us. + I wish that everything on earth were just + As certain as the meals we’ve had. I wish + The meals we haven’t had were, anyway. + What have you you know where to lay your hands on?’ + + ‘The bread we bought in passing at the store. + There’s butter somewhere, too.’ + + ‘Let’s rend the bread. + I’ll light the fire for company for you; + You’ll not have any other company + Till Ed begins to get out on a Sunday + To look us over and give us his idea + Of what wants pruning, shingling, breaking up. + He’ll know what he would do if he were we, + And all at once. He’ll plan for us and plan + To help us, but he’ll take it out in planning. + Well, you can set the table with the loaf. + Let’s see you find your loaf. I’ll light the fire. + I like chairs occupying other chairs + Not offering a lady--’ + + ‘There again, Joe! + _You’re tired._’ + + ‘I’m drunk-nonsensical tired out; + Don’t mind a word I say. It’s a day’s work + To empty one house of all household goods + And fill another with ’em fifteen miles away, + Although you do no more than dump them down.’ + + ‘Dumped down in paradise we are and happy.’ + + ‘It’s all so much what I have always wanted, + I can’t believe it’s what you wanted, too.’ + + ‘Shouldn’t you like to know?’ + + ‘I’d like to know + If it is what you wanted, then how much + You wanted it for me.’ + + ‘A troubled conscience! + You don’t want me to tell if _I_ don’t know.’ + + ‘I don’t want to find out what can’t be known. + But who first said the word to come?’ + + ‘My dear, + It’s who first thought the thought. You’re searching, Joe, + For things that don’t exist; I mean beginnings. + Ends and beginnings--there are no such things. + There are only middles.’ + + ‘What is this?’ + + ‘This life? + Our sitting here by lantern-light together + Amid the wreckage of a former home? + You won’t deny the lantern isn’t new. + The stove is not, and you are not to me, + Nor I to you.’ + + ‘Perhaps you never were?’ + + ‘It would take me forever to recite + All that’s not new in where we find ourselves. + New is a word for fools in towns who think + Style upon style in dress and thought at last + Must get somewhere. I’ve heard you say as much. + No, this is no beginning.’ + + ‘Then an end?’ + + ‘End is a gloomy word.’ + + ‘Is it too late + To drag you out for just a good-night call + On the old peach trees on the knoll to grope + By starlight in the grass for a last peach + The neighbors may not have taken as their right + When the house wasn’t lived in? I’ve been looking: + I doubt if they have left us many grapes. + Before we set ourselves to right the house, + The first thing in the morning, out we go + To go the round of apple, cherry, peach, + Pine, alder, pasture, mowing, well, and brook. + All of a farm it is.’ + + ‘I know this much: + I’m going to put you in your bed, if first + I have to make you build it. Come, the light.’ + + When there was no more lantern in the kitchen, + The fire got out through crannies in the stove + And danced in yellow wrigglers on the ceiling, + As much at home as if they’d always danced there. + + + + +_The Telephone_ + + + ‘When I was just as far as I could walk + From here to-day, + There was an hour + All still + When leaning with my head against a flower + I heard you talk. + Don’t say I didn’t, for I heard you say-- + You spoke from that flower on the window sill-- + Do you remember what it was you said?’ + + ‘First tell me what it was you thought you heard.’ + + ‘Having found the flower and driven a bee away, + I leaned my head, + And holding by the stalk, + I listened and I thought I caught the word-- + What was it? Did you call me by my name? + Or did you say-- + _Someone_ said “Come”--I heard it as I bowed.’ + + ‘I may have thought as much, but not aloud.’ + + ‘Well, so I came.’ + + + + +_Meeting and Passing_ + + + As I went down the hill along the wall + There was a gate I had leaned at for the view + And had just turned from when I first saw you + As you came up the hill. We met. But all + We did that day was mingle great and small + Footprints in summer dust as if we drew + The figure of our being less than two + But more than one as yet. Your parasol + + Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust. + And all the time we talked you seemed to see + Something down there to smile at in the dust + (Oh, it was without prejudice to me!) + Afterward I went past what you had passed + Before we met and you what I had passed. + + + + +_Hyla Brook_ + + + By June our brook’s run out of song and speed. + Sought for much after that, it will be found + Either to have gone groping underground + (And taken with it all the Hyla breed + That shouted in the mist a month ago, + Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow)-- + Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed, + Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent + Even against the way its waters went. + Its bed is left a faded paper sheet + Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat-- + A brook to none but who remember long. + This as it will be seen is other far + Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song. + We love the things we love for what they are. + + + + +_The Oven Bird_ + + + There is a singer everyone has heard, + Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird, + Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again. + He says that leaves are old and that for flowers + Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten. + He says the early petal-fall is past + When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers + On sunny days a moment overcast; + And comes that other fall we name the fall. + He says the highway dust is over all. + The bird would cease and be as other birds + But that he knows in singing not to sing. + The question that he frames in all but words + Is what to make of a diminished thing. + + + + +_Bond and Free_ + + + Love has earth to which she clings + With hills and circling arms about-- + Wall within wall to shut fear out. + But Thought has need of no such things, + For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings. + + On snow and sand and turf, I see + Where Love has left a printed trace + With straining in the world’s embrace. + And such is Love and glad to be. + But Thought has shaken his ankles free. + + Thought cleaves the interstellar gloom + And sits in Sirius’ disc all night, + Till day makes him retrace his flight, + With smell of burning on every plume, + Back past the sun to an earthly room. + + His gains in heaven are what they are. + Yet some say Love by being thrall + And simply staying possesses all + In several beauty that Thought fares far + To find fused in another star. + + + + +_Birches_ + + + When I see birches bend to left and right + Across the lines of straighter darker trees, + I like to think some boy’s been swinging them. + But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay. + Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them + Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning + After a rain. They click upon themselves + As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored + As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. + Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells + Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust-- + Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away + You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. + They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, + And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed + So low for long, they never right themselves: + You may see their trunks arching in the woods + Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground + Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair + Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. + But I was going to say when Truth broke in + With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm + I should prefer to have some boy bend them + As he went out and in to fetch the cows-- + Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, + Whose only play was what he found himself, + Summer or winter, and could play alone. + One by one he subdued his father’s trees + By riding them down over and over again + Until he took the stiffness out of them, + And not one but hung limp, not one was left + For him to conquer. He learned all there was + To learn about not launching out too soon + And so not carrying the tree away + Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise + To the top branches, climbing carefully + With the same pains you use to fill a cup + Up to the brim, and even above the brim. + Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, + Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. + So was I once myself a swinger of birches. + And so I dream of going back to be. + It’s when I’m weary of considerations, + And life is too much like a pathless wood + Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs + Broken across it, and one eye is weeping + From a twig’s having lashed across it open. + I’d like to get away from earth awhile + And then come back to it and begin over. + May no fate willfully misunderstand me + And half grant what I wish and snatch me away + Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love: + I don’t know where it’s likely to go better. + I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree, + And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk + _Toward_ heaven, till the tree could bear no more, + But dipped its top and set me down again. + That would be good both going and coming back. + One could do worse than be a swinger of birches. + + + + +_Pea Brush_ + + + I walked down alone Sunday after church + To the place where John has been cutting trees + To see for myself about the birch + He said I could have to bush my peas. + + The sun in the new-cut narrow gap + Was hot enough for the first of May, + And stifling hot with the odor of sap + From stumps still bleeding their life away. + + The frogs that were peeping a thousand shrill + Wherever the ground was low and wet, + The minute they heard my step went still + To watch me and see what I came to get. + + Birch boughs enough piled everywhere!-- + All fresh and sound from the recent axe. + Time someone came with cart and pair + And got them off the wild flowers’ backs. + + They might be good for garden things + To curl a little finger round, + The same as you seize cat’s-cradle strings, + And lift themselves up off the ground. + + Small good to anything growing wild, + They were crooking many a trillium + That had budded before the boughs were piled + And since it was coming up had to come. + + + + +_Putting in the Seed_ + + + You come to fetch me from my work to-night + When supper’s on the table, and we’ll see + If I can leave off burying the white + Soft petals fallen from the apple tree + (Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite, + Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;) + And go along with you ere you lose sight + Of what you came for and become like me, + Slave to a springtime passion for the earth. + How Love burns through the Putting in the Seed + On through the watching for that early birth + When, just as the soil tarnishes with weed, + + The sturdy seedling with arched body comes + Shouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs. + + + + +_A Time to Talk_ + + + When a friend calls to me from the road + And slows his horse to a meaning walk, + I don’t stand still and look around + On all the hills I haven’t hoed, + And shout from where I am, ‘What is it?’ + No, not as there is a time to talk. + I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground, + Blade-end up and five feet tall, + And plod: I go up to the stone wall + For a friendly visit. + + + + +_The Cow in Apple Time_ + + + Something inspires the only cow of late + To make no more of a wall than an open gate, + And think no more of wall-builders than fools. + Her face is flecked with pomace and she drools + A cider syrup. Having tasted fruit, + She scorns a pasture withering to the root. + She runs from tree to tree where lie and sweeten + The windfalls spiked with stubble and worm-eaten. + She leaves them bitten when she has to fly. + She bellows on a knoll against the sky. + Her udder shrivels and the milk goes dry. + + + + +_An Encounter_ + + + Once on the kind of day called ‘weather breeder,’ + When the heat slowly hazes and the sun + By its own power seems to be undone, + I was half boring through, half climbing through + A swamp of cedar. Choked with oil of cedar + And scurf of plants, and weary and over-heated, + And sorry I ever left the road I knew, + I paused and rested on a sort of hook + That had me by the coat as good as seated, + And since there was no other way to look, + Looked up toward heaven, and there against the blue, + Stood over me a resurrected tree, + A tree that had been down and raised again-- + A barkless spectre. He had halted too, + As if for fear of treading upon me. + I saw the strange position of his hands-- + Up at his shoulders, dragging yellow strands + Of wire with something in it from men to men. + ‘You here?’ I said. ‘Where aren’t you nowadays? + And what’s the news you carry--if you know? + And tell me where you’re off for--Montreal? + Me? I’m not off for anywhere at all. + Sometimes I wander out of beaten ways + Half looking for the orchid Calypso.’ + + + + +_Range-Finding_ + + + The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strung + And cut a flower beside a ground bird’s nest + Before it stained a single human breast. + The stricken flower bent double and so hung. + And still the bird revisited her young. + A butterfly its fall had dispossessed + A moment sought in air his flower of rest, + Then lightly stooped to it and fluttering clung. + + On the bare upland pasture there had spread + O’ernight ’twixt mullein stalks a wheel of thread + And straining cables wet with silver dew. + A sudden passing bullet shook it dry. + The indwelling spider ran to greet the fly, + But finding nothing, sullenly withdrew. + + + + +_The Hill Wife_ + + +LONELINESS + +_Her Word_ + + One ought not to have to care + So much as you and I + Care when the birds come round the house + To seem to say good-bye; + + Or care so much when they come back + With whatever it is they sing; + The truth being we are as much + Too glad for the one thing + + As we are too sad for the other here-- + With birds that fill their breasts + But with each other and themselves + And their built or driven nests. + + +HOUSE FEAR + + Always--I tell you this they learned-- + Always at night when they returned + To the lonely house from far away + To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray, + They learned to rattle the lock and key + To give whatever might chance to be + Warning and time to be off in flight: + And preferring the out- to the in-door night, + They learned to leave the house-door wide + Until they had lit the lamp inside. + + +THE SMILE + +_Her Word_ + + I didn’t like the way he went away. + That smile! It never came of being gay. + Still he smiled--did you see him?--I was sure! + Perhaps because we gave him only bread + And the wretch knew from that that we were poor. + Perhaps because he let us give instead + Of seizing from us as he might have seized. + Perhaps he mocked at us for being wed, + Or being very young (and he was pleased + To have a vision of us old and dead). + I wonder how far down the road he’s got. + He’s watching from the woods as like as not. + + +THE OFT-REPEATED DREAM + + She had no saying dark enough + For the dark pine that kept + Forever trying the window-latch + Of the room where they slept. + + The tireless but ineffectual hands + That with every futile pass + Made the great tree seem as a little bird + Before the mystery of glass! + + It never had been inside the room, + And only one of the two + Was afraid in an oft-repeated dream + Of what the tree might do. + + +THE IMPULSE + + It was too lonely for her there, + And too wild, + And since there were but two of them, + And no child, + + And work was little in the house, + She was free, + And followed where he furrowed field, + Or felled tree. + + She rested on a log and tossed + The fresh chips, + With a song only to herself + On her lips. + + And once she went to break a bough + Of black alder. + She strayed so far she scarcely heard + When he called her-- + + And didn’t answer--didn’t speak-- + Or return. + She stood, and then she ran and hid + In the fern. + + He never found her, though he looked + Everywhere, + And he asked at her mother’s house + Was she there. + + Sudden and swift and light as that + The ties gave, + And he learned of finalities + Besides the grave. + + + + +_The Bonfire_ + + + ‘Oh, let’s go up the hill and scare ourselves, + As reckless as the best of them to-night, + By setting fire to all the brush we piled + With pitchy hands to wait for rain or snow. + Oh, let’s not wait for rain to make it safe. + The pile is ours: we dragged it bough on bough + Down dark converging paths between the pines. + Let’s not care what we do with it to-night. + Divide it? No! But burn it as one pile + The way we piled it. And let’s be the talk + Of people brought to windows by a light + Thrown from somewhere against their wall-paper. + Rouse them all, both the free and not so free + With saying what they’d like to do to us + For what they’d better wait till we have done. + Let’s all but bring to life this old volcano, + If that is what the mountain ever was-- + And scare ourselves. Let wild fire loose we will....’ + + ‘And scare you too?’ the children said together. + + ‘Why wouldn’t it scare me to have a fire + Begin in smudge with ropy smoke and know + That still, if I repent, I may recall it, + But in a moment not: a little spurt + Of burning fatness, and then nothing but + The fire itself can put it out, and that + By burning out, and before it burns out + It will have roared first and mixed sparks with stars, + And sweeping round it with a flaming sword, + Made the dim trees stand back in wider circle-- + Done so much and I know not how much more + I mean it shall not do if I can bind it. + Well if it doesn’t with its draft bring on + A wind to blow in earnest from some quarter, + As once it did with me upon an April. + The breezes were so spent with winter blowing + They seemed to fail the bluebirds under them + Short of the perch their languid flight was toward; + And my flame made a pinnacle to heaven + As I walked once around it in possession. + But the wind out of doors--you know the saying. + There came a gust. You used to think the trees + Made wind by fanning since you never knew + It blow but that you saw the trees in motion. + Something or someone watching made that gust. + It put the flame tip-down and dabbed the grass + Of over-winter with the least tip-touch + Your tongue gives salt or sugar in your hand. + The place it reached to blackened instantly. + The black was almost all there was by day-light, + That and the merest curl of cigarette smoke-- + And a flame slender as the hepaticas, + Blood-root, and violets so soon to be now. + But the black spread like black death on the ground, + And I think the sky darkened with a cloud + Like winter and evening coming on together. + There were enough things to be thought of then. + Where the field stretches toward the north + And setting sun to Hyla brook, I gave it + To flames without twice thinking, where it verges + Upon the road, to flames too, though in fear + They might find fuel there, in withered brake, + Grass its full length, old silver golden-rod, + And alder and grape vine entanglement, + To leap the dusty deadline. For my own + I took what front there was beside. I knelt + And thrust hands in and held my face away. + Fight such a fire by rubbing not by beating. + A board is the best weapon if you have it. + I had my coat. And oh, I knew, I knew, + And said out loud, I couldn’t bide the smother + And heat so close in; but the thought of all + The woods and town on fire by me, and all + The town turned out to fight for me--that held me. + I trusted the brook barrier, but feared + The road would fail; and on that side the fire + Died not without a noise of crackling wood-- + Of something more than tinder-grass and weed-- + That brought me to my feet to hold it back + By leaning back myself, as if the reins + Were round my neck and I was at the plough. + I won! But I’m sure no one ever spread + Another color over a tenth the space + That I spread coal-black over in the time + It took me. Neighbors coming home from town + Couldn’t believe that so much black had come there + While they had backs turned, that it hadn’t been there + When they had passed an hour or so before + Going the other way and they not seen it. + They looked about for someone to have done it. + But there was no one. I was somewhere wondering + Where all my weariness had gone and why + I walked so light on air in heavy shoes + In spite of a scorched Fourth-of-July feeling. + Why wouldn’t I be scared remembering that?’ + + ‘If it scares you, what will it do to us?’ + + ‘Scare you. But if you shrink from being scared, + What would you say to war if it should come? + That’s what for reasons I should like to know-- + If you can comfort me by any answer.’ + + ‘Oh, but war’s not for children--it’s for men.’ + + ‘Now we are digging almost down to China. + My dears, my dears, you thought that--we all thought it. + So your mistake was ours. Haven’t you heard, though, + About the ships where war has found them out + At sea, about the towns where war has come + Through opening clouds at night with droning speed + Further o’erhead than all but stars and angels,-- + And children in the ships and in the towns? + Haven’t you heard what we have lived to learn? + Nothing so new--something we had forgotten: + _War is for everyone, for children too._ + I wasn’t going to tell you and I mustn’t. + The best way is to come up hill with me + And have our fire and laugh and be afraid.’ + + + + +_A Girl’s Garden_ + + + A neighbor of mine in the village + Likes to tell how one spring + When she was a girl on the farm, she did + A childlike thing. + + One day she asked her father + To give her a garden plot + To plant and tend and reap herself, + And he said, ‘Why not?’ + + In casting about for a corner + He thought of an idle bit + Of walled-off ground where a shop had stood, + And he said, ‘Just it.’ + + And he said, ‘That ought to make you + An ideal one-girl farm, + And give you a chance to put some strength + On your slim-jim arm.’ + + It was not enough of a garden, + Her father said, to plough; + So she had to work it all by hand, + But she don’t mind now. + + She wheeled the dung in the wheelbarrow + Along a stretch of road; + But she always ran away and left + Her not-nice load, + + And hid from anyone passing. + And then she begged the seed. + She says she thinks she planted one + Of all things but weed. + + A hill each of potatoes, + Radishes, lettuce, peas, + Tomatoes, beets, beans, pumpkins, corn, + And even fruit trees. + + And yes, she has long mistrusted + That a cider apple tree + In bearing there to-day is hers, + Or at least may be. + + Her crop was a miscellany + When all was said and done, + A little bit of everything, + A great deal of none. + + _Now_ when she sees in the village + How village things go, + Just when it seems to come in right, + She says, ‘_I_ know! + + It’s as when I was a farmer--’ + Oh, never by way of advice! + And she never sins by telling the tale + To the same person twice. + + + + +_Locked Out_ + +AS TOLD TO A CHILD + + + When we locked up the house at night, + We always locked the flowers outside + And cut them off from window light. + The time I dreamed the door was tried + And brushed with buttons upon sleeves, + The flowers were out there with the thieves. + Yet nobody molested them! + We did find one nasturtium + Upon the steps with bitten stem. + I may have been to blame for that: + I always thought it must have been + Some flower I played with as I sat + At dusk to watch the moon down early. + + + + +_The Last Word of a Bluebird_ + +AS TOLD TO A CHILD + + + As I went out a Crow + In a low voice said ‘Oh, + I was looking for you. + How do you do? + I just came to tell you + To tell Lesley (will you?) + That her little Bluebird + Wanted me to bring word + That the north wind last night + That made the stars bright + And made ice on the trough + Almost made him cough + His tail feathers off. + He just had to fly! + But he sent her Good-bye, + And said to be good, + And wear her red hood, + And look for skunk tracks + In the snow with an axe-- + And do everything! + And perhaps in the spring + He would come back and sing.’ + + + + +_‘Out, Out--’_ + + + The buzz-saw snarled and rattled in the yard + And made dust and dropped stove-length sticks of wood, + Sweet-scented stuff when the breeze drew across it. + And from there those that lifted eyes could count + Five mountain ranges one behind the other + Under the sunset far into Vermont. + And the saw snarled and rattled, snarled and rattled, + As it ran light, or had to bear a load. + And nothing happened: day was all but done. + Call it a day, I wish they might have said + To please the boy by giving him the half hour + That a boy counts so much when saved from work. + His sister stood beside them in her apron + To tell them ‘Supper.’ At the word, the saw, + As if to prove saws knew what supper meant, + Leaped out at the boy’s hand, or seemed to leap-- + He must have given the hand. However it was, + Neither refused the meeting. But the hand! + The boy’s first outcry was a rueful laugh, + As he swung toward them holding up the hand + Half in appeal, but half as if to keep + The life from spilling. Then the boy saw all-- + Since he was old enough to know, big boy + Doing a man’s work, though a child at heart-- + He saw all spoiled. ‘Don’t let him cut my hand off-- + The doctor, when he comes. Don’t let him, sister!’ + So. But the hand was gone already. + The doctor put him in the dark of ether. + He lay and puffed his lips out with his breath. + And then--the watcher at his pulse took fright. + No one believed. They listened at his heart. + Little--less--nothing!--and that ended it. + No more to build on there. And they, since they + Were not the one dead, turned to their affairs. + + + + +_Brown’s Descent_ + +OR + +THE WILLY-NILLY SLIDE + + + Brown lived at such a lofty farm + That everyone for miles could see + His lantern when he did his chores + In winter after half-past three. + + And many must have seen him make + His wild descent from there one night, + ’Cross lots, ’cross walls, ’cross everything, + Describing rings of lantern light. + + Between the house and barn the gale + Got him by something he had on + And blew him out on the icy crust + That cased the world, and he was gone! + + Walls were all buried, trees were few: + He saw no stay unless he stove + A hole in somewhere with his heel. + But though repeatedly he strove + + And stamped and said things to himself, + And sometimes something seemed to yield, + He gained no foothold, but pursued + His journey down from field to field. + + Sometimes he came with arms outspread + Like wings, revolving in the scene + Upon his longer axis, and + With no small dignity of mien. + + Faster or slower as he chanced, + Sitting or standing as he chose, + According as he feared to risk + His neck, or thought to spare his clothes, + + He never let the lantern drop. + And some exclaimed who saw afar + The figures he described with it, + ‘I wonder what those signals are + + Brown makes at such an hour of night! + He’s celebrating something strange. + I wonder if he’s sold his farm, + Or been made Master of the Grange.’ + + He reeled, he lurched, he bobbed, he checked; + He fell and made the lantern rattle + (But saved the light from going out.) + So half-way down he fought the battle, + + Incredulous of his own bad luck. + And then becoming reconciled + To everything, he gave it up + And came down like a coasting child. + + ‘Well--I--be--’ that was all he said, + As standing in the river road, + He looked back up the slippery slope + (Two miles it was) to his abode. + + Sometimes as an authority + On motor-cars, I’m asked if I + Should say our stock was petered out, + And this is my sincere reply: + + Yankees are what they always were. + Don’t think Brown ever gave up hope + Of getting home again because + He couldn’t climb that slippery slope; + + Or even thought of standing there + Until the January thaw + Should take the polish off the crust. + He bowed with grace to natural law, + + And then went round it on his feet, + After the manner of our stock; + Not much concerned for those to whom, + At that particular time o’clock, + + It must have looked as if the course + He steered was really straight away + From that which he was headed for-- + Not much concerned for them, I say; + + No more so than became a man-- + _And_ politician at odd seasons. + I’ve kept Brown standing in the cold + While I invested him with reasons; + + But now he snapped his eyes three times; + Then shook his lantern, saying, ‘Ile’s + ’Bout out!’ and took the long way home + By road, a matter of several miles. + + + + +_The Gum-Gatherer_ + + + There overtook me and drew me in + To his down-hill, early-morning stride, + And set me five miles on my road + Better than if he had had me ride, + A man with a swinging bag for load + And half the bag wound round his hand. + We talked like barking above the din + Of water we walked along beside. + And for my telling him where I’d been + And where I lived in mountain land + To be coming home the way I was, + He told me a little about himself. + He came from higher up in the pass + Where the grist of the new-beginning brooks + Is blocks split off the mountain mass-- + And hopeless grist enough it looks + Ever to grind to soil for grass. + (The way it is will do for moss.) + There he had built his stolen shack. + It had to be a stolen shack + Because of the fears of fire and loss + That trouble the sleep of lumber folk: + Visions of half the world burned black + And the sun shrunken yellow in smoke. + We know who when they come to town + Bring berries under the wagon seat, + Or a basket of eggs between their feet; + What this man brought in a cotton sack + Was gum, the gum of the mountain spruce. + He showed me lumps of the scented stuff + Like uncut jewels, dull and rough. + It comes to market golden brown; + But turns to pink between the teeth. + + I told him this is a pleasant life + To set your breast to the bark of trees + That all your days are dim beneath, + And reaching up with a little knife, + To loose the resin and take it down + And bring it to market when you please. + + + + +_The Line-Gang_ + + + Here come the line-gang pioneering by. + They throw a forest down less cut than broken. + They plant dead trees for living, and the dead + They string together with a living thread. + They string an instrument against the sky + Wherein words whether beaten out or spoken + Will run as hushed as when they were a thought. + But in no hush they string it: they go past + With shouts afar to pull the cable taut, + To hold it hard until they make it fast, + To ease away--they have it. With a laugh, + An oath of towns that set the wild at naught + They bring the telephone and telegraph. + + + + +_The Vanishing Red_ + + + He is said to have been the last Red Man + In Acton. And the Miller is said to have laughed-- + If you like to call such a sound a laugh. + But he gave no one else a laugher’s license. + For he turned suddenly grave as if to say, + ‘Whose business,--if I take it on myself, + Whose business--but why talk round the barn?-- + When it’s just that I hold with getting a thing done with.’ + You can’t get back and see it as he saw it. + It’s too long a story to go into now. + You’d have to have been there and lived it. + Then you wouldn’t have looked on it as just a matter + Of who began it between the two races. + + Some guttural exclamation of surprise + The Red Man gave in poking about the mill + Over the great big thumping shuffling mill-stone + Disgusted the Miller physically as coming + From one who had no right to be heard from. + ‘Come, John,’ he said, ‘you want to see the wheel pit?’ + + He took him down below a cramping rafter, + And showed him, through a manhole in the floor, + The water in desperate straits like frantic fish, + Salmon and sturgeon, lashing with their tails. + Then he shut down the trap door with a ring in it + That jangled even above the general noise, + And came up stairs alone--and gave that laugh, + And said something to a man with a meal-sack + That the man with the meal-sack didn’t catch--then. + Oh, yes, he showed John the wheel pit all right. + + + + +_Snow_ + + + The three stood listening to a fresh access + Of wind that caught against the house a moment, + Gulped snow, and then blew free again--the Coles + Dressed, but dishevelled from some hours of sleep, + Meserve belittled in the great skin coat he wore. + + Meserve was first to speak. He pointed backward + Over his shoulder with his pipe-stem, saying, + ‘You can just see it glancing off the roof + Making a great scroll upward toward the sky, + Long enough for recording all our names on.-- + I think I’ll just call up my wife and tell her + I’m here--so far--and starting on again. + I’ll call her softly so that if she’s wise + And gone to sleep, she needn’t wake to answer.’ + Three times he barely stirred the bell, then listened. + ‘Why, Lett, still up? Lett, I’m at Cole’s. I’m late. + I called you up to say Good-night from here + Before I went to say Good-morning there.-- + I thought I would.--I know, but, Lett--I know-- + I could, but what’s the sense? The rest won’t be + So bad.--Give me an hour for it.--Ho, ho, + Three hours to here! But that was all up hill; + The rest is down.--Why no, no, not a wallow: + They kept their heads and took their time to it + Like darlings, both of them. They’re in the barn.-- + My dear, I’m coming just the same. I didn’t + Call you to ask you to invite me home.--’ + He lingered for some word she wouldn’t say, + Said it at last himself, ‘Good-night,’ and then + Getting no answer, closed the telephone. + The three stood in the lamplight round the table + With lowered eyes a moment till he said, + ‘I’ll just see how the horses are.’ + + ‘Yes, do,’ + Both the Coles said together. Mrs. Cole + Added: ‘You can judge better after seeing.-- + I want you here with me, Fred. Leave him here, + Brother Meserve. You know to find your way + Out through the shed.’ + + ‘I guess I know my way, + I guess I know where I can find my name + Carved in the shed to tell me who I am + If it don’t tell me where I am. I used + To play--’ + + ‘You tend your horses and come back. + Fred Cole, you’re going to let him!’ + + ‘Well, aren’t you? + How can you help yourself?’ + + ‘I called him Brother. + Why did I call him that?’ + + ‘It’s right enough. + That’s all you ever heard him called round here. + He seems to have lost off his Christian name.’ + + ‘Christian enough I should call that myself. + He took no notice, did he? Well, at least + I didn’t use it out of love of him, + The dear knows. I detest the thought of him + With his ten children under ten years old. + I hate his wretched little Racker Sect, + All’s ever I heard of it, which isn’t much. + But that’s not saying--Look, Fred Cole, it’s twelve, + Isn’t it, now? He’s been here half an hour. + He says he left the village store at nine. + Three hours to do four miles--a mile an hour + Or not much better. Why, it doesn’t seem + As if a man could move that slow and move. + Try to think what he did with all that time. + And three miles more to go!’ + + ‘Don’t let him go. + Stick to him, Helen. Make him answer you. + That sort of man talks straight on all his life + From the last thing he said himself, stone deaf + To anything anyone else may say. + I should have thought, though, you could make him hear you.’ + + ‘What is he doing out a night like this? + Why can’t he stay at home?’ + + ‘He had to preach.’ + + ‘It’s no night to be out.’ + + ‘He may be small, + He may be good, but one thing’s sure, he’s tough.’ + + ‘And strong of stale tobacco.’ + + ‘He’ll pull through.’ + + ‘You only say so. Not another house + Or shelter to put into from this place + To theirs. I’m going to call his wife again.’ + + ‘Wait and he may. Let’s see what he will do. + Let’s see if he will think of her again. + But then I doubt he’s thinking of himself. + He doesn’t look on it as anything.’ + + ‘He shan’t go--there!’ + + ‘It _is_ a night, my dear.’ + + ‘One thing: he didn’t drag God into it.’ + + ‘He don’t consider it a case for God.’ + + ‘You think so, do you? You don’t know the kind. + He’s getting up a miracle this minute. + Privately--to himself, right now, he’s thinking + He’ll make a case of it if he succeeds, + But keep still if he fails.’ + + ‘Keep still all over. + He’ll be dead--dead and buried.’ + + ‘Such a trouble! + Not but I’ve every reason not to care + What happens to him if it only takes + Some of the sanctimonious conceit + Out of one of those pious scalawags.’ + + ‘Nonsense to that! You want to see him safe.’ + + ‘You like the runt.’ + + ‘Don’t you a little?’ + + ‘Well, + I don’t like what he’s doing, which is what + You like, and like him for.’ + + ‘Oh, yes you do. + You like your fun as well as anyone; + Only you women have to put these airs on + To impress men. You’ve got us so ashamed + Of being men we can’t look at a good fight + Between two boys and not feel bound to stop it. + Let the man freeze an ear or two, I say.-- + He’s here. I leave him all to you. Go in + And save his life.--All right, come in, Meserve. + Sit down, sit down. How did you find the horses?’ + + ‘Fine, fine.’ + + ‘And ready for some more? My wife here + Says it won’t do. You’ve got to give it up.’ + + ‘Won’t you to please me? Please! If I say please? + Mr. Meserve, I’ll leave it to _your_ wife. + What _did_ your wife say on the telephone?’ + + Meserve seemed to heed nothing but the lamp + Or something not far from it on the table. + By straightening out and lifting a forefinger, + He pointed with his hand from where it lay + Like a white crumpled spider on his knee: + ‘That leaf there in your open book! It moved + Just then, I thought. It’s stood erect like that, + There on the table, ever since I came, + Trying to turn itself backward or forward, + I’ve had my eye on it to make out which; + If forward, then it’s with a friend’s impatience-- + You see I know--to get you on to things + It wants to see how you will take, if backward + It’s from regret for something you have passed + And failed to see the good of. Never mind, + Things must expect to come in front of us + A many times--I don’t say just how many-- + That varies with the things--before we see them. + One of the lies would make it out that nothing + Ever presents itself before us twice. + Where would we be at last if that were so? + Our very life depends on everything’s + Recurring till we answer from within. + The thousandth time may prove the charm.--That leaf! + It can’t turn either way. It needs the wind’s help. + But the wind didn’t move it if it moved. + It moved itself. The wind’s at naught in here. + It couldn’t stir so sensitively poised + A thing as that. It couldn’t reach the lamp + To get a puff of black smoke from the flame, + Or blow a rumple in the collie’s coat. + You make a little foursquare block of air, + Quiet and light and warm, in spite of all + The illimitable dark and cold and storm, + And by so doing give these three, lamp, dog, + And book-leaf, that keep near you, their repose; + Though for all anyone can tell, repose + May be the thing you haven’t, yet you give it. + So false it is that what we haven’t we can’t give; + So false, that what we always say is true. + I’ll have to turn the leaf if no one else will. + It won’t lie down. Then let it stand. Who cares?’ + + ‘I shouldn’t want to hurry you, Meserve, + But if you’re going--Say you’ll stay, you know. + But let me raise this curtain on a scene, + And show you how it’s piling up against you. + You see the snow-white through the white of frost? + Ask Helen how far up the sash it’s climbed + Since last we read the gage.’ + + ‘It looks as if + Some pallid thing had squashed its features flat + And its eyes shut with overeagerness + To see what people found so interesting + In one another, and had gone to sleep + Of its own stupid lack of understanding, + Or broken its white neck of mushroom stuff + Short off, and died against the window-pane.’ + + ‘Brother Meserve, take care, you’ll scare yourself + More than you will us with such nightmare talk. + It’s you it matters to, because it’s you + Who have to go out into it alone.’ + + ‘Let him talk, Helen, and perhaps he’ll stay.’ + + ‘Before you drop the curtain--I’m reminded: + You recollect the boy who came out here + To breathe the air one winter--had a room + Down at the Averys’? Well, one sunny morning + After a downy storm, he passed our place + And found me banking up the house with snow. + And I was burrowing in deep for warmth, + Piling it well above the window-sills. + The snow against the window caught his eye. + “Hey, that’s a pretty thought”--those were his words. + “So you can think it’s six feet deep outside, + While you sit warm and read up balanced rations. + You can’t get too much winter in the winter.” + Those were his words. And he went home and all + But banked the daylight out of Avery’s windows. + Now you and I would go to no such length. + At the same time you can’t deny it makes + It not a mite worse, sitting here, we three, + Playing our fancy, to have the snowline run + So high across the pane outside. There where + There is a sort of tunnel in the frost + More like a tunnel than a hole--way down + At the far end of it you see a stir + And quiver like the frayed edge of the drift + Blown in the wind. I _like_ that--I like _that_. + Well, now I leave you, people.’ + + ‘Come, Meserve, + We thought you were deciding not to go-- + The ways you found to say the praise of comfort + And being where you are. You want to stay.’ + + ‘I’ll own it’s cold for such a fall of snow. + This house is frozen brittle, all except + This room you sit in. If you think the wind + Sounds further off, it’s not because it’s dying; + You’re further under in the snow--that’s all-- + And feel it less. Hear the soft bombs of dust + It bursts against us at the chimney mouth, + And at the eaves. I like it from inside + More than I shall out in it. But the horses + Are rested and it’s time to say good-night, + And let you get to bed again. Good-night, + Sorry I had to break in on your sleep.’ + + ‘Lucky for you you did. Lucky for you + You had us for a half-way station + To stop at. If you were the kind of man + Paid heed to women, you’d take my advice + And for your family’s sake stay where you are. + But what good is my saying it over and over? + You’ve done more than you had a right to think + You could do--_now_. You know the risk you take + In going on.’ + + ‘Our snow-storms as a rule + Aren’t looked on as man-killers, and although + I’d rather be the beast that sleeps the sleep + Under it all, his door sealed up and lost, + Than the man fighting it to keep above it, + Yet think of the small birds at roost and not + In nests. Shall I be counted less than they are? + Their bulk in water would be frozen rock + In no time out to-night. And yet to-morrow + They will come budding boughs from tree to tree + Flirting their wings and saying Chickadee, + As if not knowing what you meant by the word storm.’ + + ‘But why when no one wants you to go on? + Your wife--she doesn’t want you to. We don’t, + And you yourself don’t want to. Who else is there?’ + + ‘Save us from being cornered by a woman. + Well, there’s’--She told Fred afterward that in + The pause right there, she thought the dreaded word + Was coming, ‘God.’ But no, he only said + ‘Well, there’s--the storm. That says I must go on. + That wants me as a war might if it came. + Ask any man.’ + + He threw her that as something + To last her till he got outside the door. + He had Cole with him to the barn to see him off. + When Cole returned he found his wife still standing + Beside the table near the open book, + Not reading it. + + ‘Well, what kind of a man + Do you call that?’ she said. + + ‘He had the gift + Of words, or is it tongues, I ought to say?’ + + ‘Was ever such a man for seeing likeness?’ + + ‘Or disregarding people’s civil questions-- + What? We’ve found out in one hour more about him + Than we had seeing him pass by in the road + A thousand times. If that’s the way he preaches! + You didn’t think you’d keep him after all. + Oh, I’m not blaming you. He didn’t leave you + Much say in the matter, and I’m just as glad + We’re not in for a night of him. No sleep + If he had stayed. The least thing set him going. + It’s quiet as an empty church without him.’ + + ‘But how much better off are we as it is? + We’ll have to sit here till we know he’s safe.’ + + ‘Yes, I suppose you’ll want to, but I shouldn’t. + He knows what he can do, or he wouldn’t try. + Get into bed I say, and get some rest. + He won’t come back, and if he telephones, + It won’t be for an hour or two.’ + + ‘Well then. + We can’t be any help by sitting here + And living his fight through with him, I suppose.’ + + * * * * * + + Cole had been telephoning in the dark. + Mrs. Cole’s voice came from an inner room: + ‘Did she call you or you call her?’ + + ‘She me. + You’d better dress: you won’t go back to bed. + We must have been asleep: it’s three and after.’ + + ‘Had she been ringing long? I’ll get my wrapper. + I want to speak to her.’ + + ‘All she said was, + He hadn’t come and had he really started.’ + + ‘She knew he had, poor thing, two hours ago.’ + + ‘He had the shovel. He’ll have made a fight.’ + + ‘Why did I ever let him leave this house!’ + + ‘Don’t begin that. You did the best you could + To keep him--though perhaps you didn’t quite + Conceal a wish to see him show the spunk + To disobey you. Much his wife’ll thank you.’ + + ‘Fred, after all I said! You shan’t make out + That it was any way but what it was. + Did she let on by any word she said + She didn’t thank me?’ + + ‘When I told her “Gone,” + “Well then,” she said, and “Well then”--like a threat. + And then her voice came scraping slow: “Oh, you, + Why did you let him go?”’ + + ‘Asked why we let him? + You let me there. I’ll ask her why she let him. + She didn’t dare to speak when he was here. + Their number’s--twenty-one? The thing won’t work. + Someone’s receiver’s down. The handle stumbles. + The stubborn thing, the way it jars your arm! + It’s theirs. She’s dropped it from her hand and gone.’ + + ‘Try speaking. Say “Hello!”’ + + ‘Hello. Hello.’ + + ‘What do you hear?’ + + ‘I hear an empty room-- + You know--it sounds that way. And yes, I hear-- + I think I hear a clock--and windows rattling. + No step though. If she’s there she’s sitting down.’ + + ‘Shout, she may hear you.’ + + ‘Shouting is no good.’ + + ‘Keep speaking then.’ + + ‘Hello. Hello. Hello. + You don’t suppose--? She wouldn’t go out doors?’ + + ‘I’m half afraid that’s just what she might do.’ + + ‘And leave the children?’ + + ‘Wait and call again. + You can’t hear whether she has left the door + Wide open and the wind’s blown out the lamp + And the fire’s died and the room’s dark and cold?’ + + ‘One of two things, either she’s gone to bed + Or gone out doors.’ + + ‘In which case both are lost. + Do you know what she’s like? Have you ever met her? + It’s strange she doesn’t want to speak to us.’ + + ‘Fred, see if you can hear what I hear. Come.’ + + ‘A clock maybe.’ + + ‘Don’t you hear something else?’ + + ‘Not talking.’ + + ‘No.’ + + ‘Why, yes, I hear--what is it?’ + + ‘What do you say it is?’ + + ‘A baby’s crying! + Frantic it sounds, though muffled and far off. + Its mother wouldn’t let it cry like that, + Not if she’s there.’ + + ‘What do you make of it?’ + + ‘There’s only one thing possible to make, + That is, assuming--that she has gone out. + Of course she hasn’t though.’ They both sat down + Helpless. ‘There’s nothing we can do till morning.’ + + ‘Fred, I shan’t let you think of going out.’ + + ‘Hold on.’ The double bell began to chirp. + They started up. Fred took the telephone. + ‘Hello, Meserve. You’re there, then!--And your wife? + Good! Why I asked--she didn’t seem to answer. + He says she went to let him in the barn.-- + We’re glad. Oh, say no more about it, man. + Drop in and see us when you’re passing.’ + + ‘Well, + She has him then, though what she wants him for + I _don’t_ see.’ + + ‘Possibly not for herself. + Maybe she only wants him for the children.’ + + ‘The whole to-do seems to have been for nothing. + What spoiled our night was to him just his fun. + What did he come in for?--To talk and visit? + Thought he’d just call to tell us it was snowing. + If he thinks he is going to make our house + A half-way coffee house ’twixt town and nowhere--’ + + ‘I thought you’d feel you’d been too much concerned.’ + + ‘You think you haven’t been concerned yourself.’ + + ‘If you mean he was inconsiderate + To rout us out to think for him at midnight + And then take our advice no more than nothing, + Why, I agree with you. But let’s forgive him. + We’ve had a share in one night of his life. + What’ll you bet he ever calls again?’ + + + + +_The Sound of the Trees_ + + + I wonder about the trees. + Why do we wish to bear + Forever the noise of these + More than another noise + So close to our dwelling place? + We suffer them by the day + Till we lose all measure of pace, + And fixity in our joys, + And acquire a listening air. + They are that that talks of going + But never gets away; + And that talks no less for knowing, + As it grows wiser and older, + That now it means to stay. + My feet tug at the floor + And my head sways to my shoulder + Sometimes when I watch trees sway, + From the window or the door. + I shall set forth for somewhere, + I shall make the reckless choice + Some day when they are in voice + And tossing so as to scare + The white clouds over them on. + I shall have less to say, + But I shall be gone. + + + + +NEW HAMPSHIRE + + + + +_New Hampshire_ + + + I met a lady from the South who said + (You won’t believe she said it, but she said it): + ‘None of my family ever worked, or had + A thing to sell.’ I don’t suppose the work + Much matters. You may work for all of me. + I’ve seen the time I’ve had to work myself. + The having anything to sell is what + Is the disgrace in man or state or nation. + + I met a traveller from Arkansas + Who boasted of his state as beautiful + For diamonds and apples. ‘Diamonds + And apples in commercial quantities?’ + I asked him, on my guard. ‘Oh yes,’ he answered, + Off his. The time was evening in the Pullman. + ‘I see the porter’s made your bed,’ I told him. + + I met a Californian who would + Talk California--a state so blessed, + He said, in climate, none had ever died there + A natural death, and Vigilance Committees + Had had to organize to stock the graveyards + And vindicate the state’s humanity. + ‘Just the way Steffanson runs on,’ I murmured, + ‘About the British Arctic. That’s what comes + Of being in the market with a climate.’ + + I met a poet from another state, + A zealot full of fluid inspiration, + Who in the name of fluid inspiration, + But in the best style of bad salesmanship, + Angrily tried to make me write a protest + (In verse I think) against the Volstead Act. + He didn’t even offer me a drink + Until I asked for one to steady _him_. + This is called having an idea to sell. + + It never could have happened in New Hampshire. + + The only person really soiled with trade + I ever stumbled on in old New Hampshire + Was someone who had just come back ashamed + From selling things in California. + He’d built a noble mansard roof with balls + On turrets like Constantinople, deep + In woods some ten miles from a railroad station, + As if to put forever out of mind + The hope of being, as we say, received. + I found him standing at the close of day + Inside the threshold of his open barn, + Like a lone actor on a gloomy stage-- + And recognized him through the iron grey + In which his face was muffled to the eyes + As an old boyhood friend, and once indeed + A drover with me on the road to Brighton. + His farm was ‘grounds,’ and not a farm at all; + His house among the local sheds and shanties + Rose like a factor’s at a trading station. + And he was rich, and I was still a rascal. + I couldn’t keep from asking impolitely, + Where had he been and what had he been doing? + How did he get so? (Rich was understood.) + In dealing in ‘old rags’ in San Francisco. + Oh it was terrible as well could be. + We both of us turned over in our graves. + Just specimens is all New Hampshire has, + One each of everything as in a show-case + Which naturally she doesn’t care to sell. + + She had one President (pronounce him Purse, + And make the most of it for better or worse. + He’s your one chance to score against the state). + She had one Daniel Webster. He was all + The Daniel Webster ever was or shall be. + She had the Dartmouth needed to produce him. + + I call her old. She has one family + Whose claim is good to being settled here + Before the era of colonization, + And before that of exploration even. + John Smith remarked them as he coasted by + Dangling their legs and fishing off a wharf + At the Isles of Shoals, and satisfied himself + They weren’t Red Indians, but veritable + Pre-primitives of the white race, dawn people, + Like those who furnished Adam’s sons with wives; + However uninnocent they may have been + In being there so early in our history. + They’d been there then a hundred years or more. + Pity he didn’t ask what they were up to + At that date with a wharf already built, + And take their name. They’ve since told me their name-- + Today an honored one in Nottingham. + As for what they were up to more than fishing-- + Suppose they weren’t behaving Puritanly, + The hour had not yet struck for being good, + Mankind had not yet gone on the Sabbatical. + It became an explorer of the deep + Not to explore too deep in others’ business. + Did you but know of him, New Hampshire has + One real reformer who would change the world + So it would be accepted by two classes, + Artists the minute they set up as artists, + Before, that is, they are themselves accepted, + And boys the minute they get out of college. + I can’t help thinking those are tests to go by. + + And she has one I don’t know what to call him, + Who comes from Philadelphia every year + With a great flock of chickens of rare breeds + He wants to give the educational + Advantages of growing almost wild + Under the watchful eye of hawk and eagle-- + Dorkings because they’re spoken of by Chaucer, + Sussex because they’re spoken of by Herrick. + + She has a touch of gold. New Hampshire gold-- + You may have heard of it. I had a farm + Offered me not long since up Berlin way + With a mine on it that was worked for gold; + But not gold in commercial quantities. + Just enough gold to make the engagement rings + And marriage rings of those who owned the farm. + What gold more innocent could one have asked for? + One of my children ranging after rocks + Lately brought home from Andover or Canaan + A specimen of beryl with a trace + Of radium. I know with radium + The trace would have to be the merest trace + To be below the threshold of commercial; + But trust New Hampshire not to have enough + Of radium or anything to sell. + + A specimen of everything, I said. + She has one witch--old style. She lives in Colebrook. + (The only other witch I ever met + Was lately at a cut-glass dinner in Boston. + There were four candles and four people present. + The witch was young, and beautiful (new style), + And open-minded. She was free to question + Her gift for reading letters locked in boxes. + Why was it so much greater when the boxes + Were metal than it was when they were wooden? + It made the world seem so mysterious. + The S’ciety for Psychical Research + Was cognizant. Her husband was worth millions. + I think he owned some shares in Harvard College.) + + New Hampshire _used_ to have at Salem + A company we called the White Corpuscles, + Whose duty was at any hour of night + To rush in sheets and fools’ caps where they smelled + A thing the least bit doubtfully perscented + And give someone the Skipper Ireson’s Ride. + + One each of everything as in a show-case. + More than enough land for a specimen + You’ll say she has, but there there enters in + Something else to protect her from herself. + There quality makes up for quantity. + Not even New Hampshire farms are much for sale. + The farm I made my home on in the mountains + I had to take by force rather than buy. + I caught the owner outdoors by himself + Raking up after winter, and I said, + ‘I’m going to put you off this farm: I want it.’ + ‘Where are you going to put me? In the road?’ + ‘I’m going to put you on the farm next to it.’ + ‘Why won’t the farm next to it do for you?’ + ‘I like this better.’ It was really better. + + Apples? New Hampshire has them, but unsprayed, + With no suspicion in stem-end or blossom-end + Of vitriol or arsenate of lead, + And so not good for anything but cider. + Her unpruned grapes are flung like lariats + Far up the birches out of reach of man. + + A state producing precious metals, stones, + And--writing; none of these except perhaps + The precious literature in quantity + Or quality to worry the producer + About disposing of it. Do you know, + Considering the market, there are more + Poems produced than any other thing? + No wonder poets sometimes have to _seem_ + So much more business-like than business men. + Their wares are so much harder to get rid of. + + She’s one of the two best states in the Union. + Vermont’s the other. And the two have been + Yoke-fellows in the sap-yoke from of old + In many Marches. And they lie like wedges, + Thick end to thin end and thin end to thick end, + And are a figure of the way the strong + Of mind and strong of arm should fit together, + One thick where one is thin and vice versa. + New Hampshire raises the Connecticut + In a trout hatchery near Canada, + But soon divides the river with Vermont. + Both are delightful states for their absurdly + Small towns--Lost Nation, Bungey, Muddy Boo, + Poplin, Still Corners (so called not because + The place is silent all day long, nor yet + Because it boasts a whisky still--because + It set out once to be a city and still + Is only corners, cross-roads in a wood). + And I remember one whose name appeared + Between the pictures on a movie screen + Election night once in Franconia, + When everything had gone Republican + And Democrats were sore in need of comfort: + Easton goes Democratic, Wilson 4 + Hughes 2. And everybody to the saddest + Laughed the loud laugh, the big laugh at the little. + New York (five million) laughs at Manchester, + Manchester (sixty or seventy thousand) laughs + At Littleton (four thousand), Littleton + Laughs at Franconia (seven hundred), and + Franconia laughs, I fear,--did laugh that night-- + At Easton. What has Easton left to laugh at, + And like the actress exclaim, ‘Oh my God’ at? + There’s Bungey; and for Bungey there are towns, + Whole townships named but without population. + + Anything I can say about New Hampshire + Will serve almost as well about Vermont, + Excepting that they differ in their mountains. + The Vermont mountains stretch extended straight; + New Hampshire mountains curl up in a coil. + + I had been coming to New Hampshire mountains. + And here I am and what am I to say? + Here first my theme becomes embarrassing. + Emerson said, ‘The God who made New Hampshire + Taunted the lofty land with little men.’ + Another Massachusetts poet said, + ‘I go no more to summer in New Hampshire. + I’ve given up my summer place in Dublin.’ + But when I asked to know what ailed New Hampshire, + She said she couldn’t stand the people in it, + The little men (it’s Massachusetts speaking). + And when I asked to know what ailed the people, + She said, ‘Go read your own books and find out.’ + I may as well confess myself the author + Of several books against the world in general. + To take them as against a special state + Or even nation’s to restrict my meaning. + I’m what is called a sensibilitist, + Or otherwise an environmentalist. + I refuse to adapt myself a mite + To any change from hot to cold, from wet + To dry, from poor to rich, or back again. + I make a virtue of my suffering + From nearly everything that goes on round me. + In other words, I know wherever I am, + Being the creature of literature I am, + I shall not lack for pain to keep me awake. + Kit Marlowe taught me how to say my prayers: + ‘Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it.’ + Samoa, Russia, Ireland I complain of, + No less than England, France and Italy. + Because I wrote my novels in New Hampshire + Is no proof that I aimed them at New Hampshire. + + When I left Massachusetts years ago + Between two days, the reason why I sought + New Hampshire, not Connecticut, + Rhode Island, New York, or Vermont was this: + Where I was living then, New Hampshire offered + The nearest boundary to escape across. + I hadn’t an illusion in my hand-bag + About the people being better there + Than those I left behind. I thought they weren’t. + I thought they couldn’t be. And yet they were. + I’d sure had no such friends in Massachusetts + As Hall of Windham, Gay of Atkinson, + Bartlett of Raymond (now of Colorado), + Harris of Derry, and Lynch of Bethlehem. + + The glorious bards of Massachusetts seem + To want to make New Hampshire people over. + They taunt the lofty land with little men. + I don’t know what to say about the people. + For art’s sake one could almost wish them worse + Rather than better. How are we to write + The Russian novel in America + As long as life goes so unterribly? + There is the pinch from which our only outcry + In literature to date is heard to come. + We get what little misery we can + Out of not having cause for misery. + It makes the guild of novel writers sick + To be expected to be Dostoievskis + On nothing worse than too much luck and comfort. + This is not sorrow, though; it’s just the vapors, + And recognized as such in Russia itself + Under the new régime, and so forbidden. + If well it is with Russia, then feel free + To say so or be stood against the wall + And shot. It’s Pollyanna now or death. + This, then, is the new freedom we hear tell of; + And very sensible. No state can build + A literature that shall at once be sound + And sad on a foundation of well-being. + + To show the level of intelligence + Among us: it was just a Warren farmer + Whose horse had pulled him short up in the road + By me, a stranger. This is what he said, + From nothing but embarrassment and want + Of anything more sociable to say: + ‘You hear those hound-dogs sing on Moosilauke? + Well they remind me of the hue and cry + We’ve heard against the Mid-Victorians + And never rightly understood till Bryan + Retired from politics and joined the chorus. + The matter with the Mid-Victorians + Seems to have been a man named John L. Darwin.’ + ‘Go ’long,’ I said to him, he to his horse. + + I knew a man who failing as a farmer + Burned down his farmhouse for the fire insurance, + And spent the proceeds on a telescope + To satisfy a life-long curiosity + About our place among the infinities. + And how was that for other-worldliness? + + If I must choose which I would elevate-- + The people or the already lofty mountains, + I’d elevate the already lofty mountains. + The only fault I find with old New Hampshire + Is that her mountains aren’t quite high enough. + I was not always so; I’ve come to be so. + How, to my sorrow, how have I attained + A height from which to look down critical + On mountains? What has given me assurance + To say what height becomes New Hampshire mountains, + Or any mountains? Can it be some strength + I feel as of an earthquake in my back + To heave them higher to the morning star? + Can it be foreign travel in the Alps? + Or having seen and credited a moment + The solid moulding of vast peaks of cloud + Behind the pitiful reality + Of Lincoln, Lafayette and Liberty? + Or some such sense as says how high shall jet + The fountain in proportion to the basin? + No, none of these has raised me to my throne + Of intellectual dissatisfaction, + But the sad accident of having seen + Our actual mountains given in a map + Of early times as twice the height they are-- + Ten thousand feet instead of only five-- + Which shows how sad an accident may be. + Five thousand is no longer high enough. + Whereas I never had a good idea + About improving people in the world, + Here I am over-fertile in suggestion, + And cannot rest from planning day or night + How high I’d thrust the peaks in summer snow + To tap the upper sky and draw a flow + Of frosty night air on the vale below + Down from the stars to freeze the dew as starry. + + The more the sensibilitist I am + The more I seem to want my mountains wild; + The way the wiry gang-boss liked the log-jam. + After he’d picked the lock and got it started, + He dodged a log that lifted like an arm + Against the sky to break his back for him, + Then came in dancing, skipping, with his life + Across the roar and chaos, and the words + We saw him say along the zigzag journey + Were doubtless as the words we heard him say + On coming nearer: ‘Wasn’t she an _i_-deal + Son-of-a-bitch? You bet she was an _i_-deal.’ + + For all her mountains fall a little short, + Her people not quite short enough for Art, + She’s still New Hampshire, a most restful state. + + Lately in converse with a New York alec + About the new school of the pseudo-phallic, + I found myself in a close corner where + I had to make an almost funny choice. + ‘Choose you which you will be--a prude, or puke, + Mewling and puking in the public arms.’ + ‘Me for the hills where I don’t have to choose.’ + ‘But if you had to choose, which would you be?’ + I wouldn’t be a prude afraid of nature. + I know a man who took a double axe + And went alone against a grove of trees; + But his heart failing him, he dropped the axe + And ran for shelter quoting Matthew Arnold: + ‘Nature is cruel, man is sick of blood; + There’s been enough shed without shedding mine. + Remember Birnam Wood! The wood’s in flux!’ + He had a special terror of the flux + That showed itself in dendrophobia. + The only decent tree had been to mill + And educated into boards, he said. + He knew too well for any earthly use + The line where man leaves off and nature starts, + And never over-stepped it save in dreams. + He stood on the safe side of the line talking; + Which is sheer Matthew Arnoldism, + The cult of one who owned himself ‘a foiled, + Circuitous wanderer,’ and ‘took dejectedly + His seat upon the intellectual throne.’ + Agreed in frowning on these improvised + Altars the woods are full of nowadays, + Again as in the days when Ahaz sinned + By worship under green trees in the open. + Scarcely a mile but that I come on one, + A black-cheeked stone and stick of rain-washed charcoal. + Even to say the groves were God’s first temples + Comes too near to Ahaz’ sin for safety. + Nothing not built with hands of course is sacred. + But here is not a question of what’s sacred; + Rather of what to face or run away from. + I’d hate to be a runaway from nature. + And neither would I choose to be a puke + Who cares not what he does in company, + And, when he can’t do anything, falls back + On words, and tries his worst to make words speak + Louder than actions, and sometimes achieves it. + It seems a narrow choice the age insists on. + How about being a good Greek, for instance? + That course, they tell me, isn’t offered this year. + ‘Come, but this isn’t choosing--puke or prude?’ + Well, if I have to choose one or the other, + I choose to be a plain New Hampshire farmer + With an income in cash of say a thousand + (From say a publisher in New York City). + It’s restful to arrive at a decision, + And restful just to think about New Hampshire + At present I am living in Vermont. + + + + +_A Star in a Stone-Boat_ + +(For Lincoln MacVeagh) + + + Never tell me that not one star of all + That slip from heaven at night and softly fall + Has been picked up with stones to build a wall. + + Some laborer found one faded and stone cold, + And saving that its weight suggested gold, + And tugged it from his first too certain hold, + + He noticed nothing in it to remark. + He was not used to handling stars thrown dark + And lifeless from an interrupted arc. + + He did not recognize in that smooth coal + The one thing palpable besides the soul + To penetrate the air in which we roll. + + He did not see how like a flying thing + It brooded ant-eggs, and had one large wing, + One not so large for flying in a ring, + + And a long Bird of Paradise’s tail, + (Though these when not in use to fly and trail + It drew back in its body like a snail); + + Nor know that he might move it from the spot, + The harm was done; from having been star-shot + The very nature of the soil was hot + + And burning to yield flowers instead of grain, + Flowers fanned and not put out by all the rain + Poured on them by his prayers prayed in vain. + + He moved it roughly with an iron bar, + He loaded an old stone-boat with the star + And not, as you might think, a flying car, + + Such as even poets would admit perforce + More practical than Pegasus the horse + If it could put a star back in its course. + + He dragged it through the ploughed ground at a pace + But faintly reminiscent of the race + Of jostling rock in interstellar space. + + It went for building stone, and I, as though + Commanded in a dream, forever go + To right the wrong that this should have been so. + + Yet ask where else it could have gone as well, + I do not know--I cannot stop to tell: + He might have left it lying where it fell. + + From following walls I never lift my eye + Except at night to places in the sky + Where showers of charted meteors let fly. + + Some may know what they seek in school and church, + And why they seek it there; for what I search + I must go measuring stone walls, perch on perch; + + Sure that though not a star of death and birth, + So not to be compared, perhaps, in worth + To such resorts of life as Mars and Earth, + + Though not, I say, a star of death and sin, + It yet has poles, and only needs a spin + To show its worldly nature and begin + + To chafe and shuffle in my calloused palm + And run off in strange tangents with my arm + As fish do with the line in first alarm. + + Such as it is, it promises the prize + Of the one world complete in any size + That I am like to compass, fool or wise. + + + + +_The Census-Taker_ + + + I came an errand one cloud-blowing evening + To a slab-built, black-paper-covered house + Of one room and one window and one door, + The only dwelling in a waste cut over + A hundred square miles round it in the mountains: + And that not dwelt in now by men or women. + (It never had been dwelt in, though, by women, + So what is this I make a sorrow of?) + I came as census-taker to the waste + To count the people in it and found none, + None in the hundred miles, none in the house, + Where I came last with some hope, but not much + After hours’ overlooking from the cliffs + An emptiness flayed to the very stone. + I found no people that dared show themselves, + None not in hiding from the outward eye. + The time was autumn, but how anyone + Could tell the time of year when every tree + That could have dropped a leaf was down itself + And nothing but the stump of it was left + Now bringing out its rings in sugar of pitch; + And every tree up stood a rotting trunk + Without a single leaf to spend on autumn, + Or branch to whistle after what was spent. + Perhaps the wind the more without the help + Of breathing trees said something of the time + Of year or day the way it swung a door + Forever off the latch, as if rude men + Passed in and slammed it shut each one behind him + For the next one to open for himself. + I counted nine I had no right to count + (But this was dreamy unofficial counting) + Before I made the tenth across the threshold. + Where was my supper? Where was anyone’s? + No lamp was lit. Nothing was on the table. + The stove was cold--the stove was off the chimney-- + And down by one side where it lacked a leg. + The people that had loudly passed the door + Were people to the ear but not the eye. + They were not on the table with their elbows. + They were not sleeping in the shelves of bunks. + I saw no men there and no bones of men there. + I armed myself against such bones as might be + With the pitch-blackened stub of an axe-handle + I picked up off the straw-dust covered floor. + Not bones, but the ill-fitted window rattled. + The door was still because I held it shut + While I thought what to do that could be done-- + About the house--about the people not there. + This house in one year fallen to decay + Filled me with no less sorrow than the houses + Fallen to ruin in ten thousand years + Where Asia wedges Africa from Europe. + Nothing was left to do that I could see + Unless to find that there was no one there + And declare to the cliffs too far for echo, + ‘The place is desert and let whoso lurks + In silence, if in this he is aggrieved, + Break silence now or be forever silent. + Let him say why it should not be declared so.’ + The melancholy of having to count souls + Where they grow fewer and fewer every year + Is extreme where they shrink to none at all. + It must be I want life to go on living. + + + + +_The Star-Splitter_ + + + ‘You know Orion always comes up sideways. + Throwing a leg up over our fence of mountains, + And rising on his hands, he looks in on me + Busy outdoors by lantern-light with something + I should have done by daylight, and indeed, + After the ground is frozen, I should have done + Before it froze, and a gust flings a handful + Of waste leaves at my smoky lantern chimney + To make fun of my way of doing things, + Or else fun of Orion’s having caught me. + Has a man, I should like to ask, no rights + These forces are obliged to pay respect to?’ + So Brad McLaughlin mingled reckless talk + Of heavenly stars with hugger-mugger farming, + Till having failed at hugger-mugger farming, + He burned his house down for the fire insurance + And spent the proceeds on a telescope + To satisfy a life-long curiosity + About our place among the infinities. + + ‘What do you want with one of those blame things?’ + I asked him well beforehand. ‘Don’t you get one!’ + ‘Don’t call it blamed; there isn’t anything + More blameless in the sense of being less + A weapon in our human fight,’ he said. + ‘I’ll have one if I sell my farm to buy it.’ + There where he moved the rocks to plow the ground + And plowed between the rocks he couldn’t move, + Few farms changed hands; so rather than spend years + Trying to sell his farm and then not selling, + He burned his house down for the fire insurance + And bought the telescope with what it came to. + He had been heard to say by several: + ‘The best thing that we’re put here for’s to see; + The strongest thing that’s given us to see with’s + A telescope. Someone in every town + Seems to me owes it to the town to keep one. + In Littleton it may as well be me.’ + After such loose talk it was no surprise + When he did what he did and burned his house down. + + Mean laughter went about the town that day + To let him know we weren’t the least imposed on, + And he could wait--we’d see to him to-morrow. + But the first thing next morning we reflected + If one by one we counted people out + For the least sin, it wouldn’t take us long + To get so we had no one left to live with. + For to be social is to be forgiving. + Our thief, the one who does our stealing from us, + We don’t cut off from coming to church suppers, + But what we miss we go to him and ask for. + He promptly gives it back, that is if still + Uneaten, unworn out, or undisposed of. + It wouldn’t do to be too hard on Brad + About his telescope. Beyond the age + Of being given one’s gift for Christmas, + He had to take the best way he knew how + To find himself in one. Well, all we said was + He took a strange thing to be roguish over. + Some sympathy was wasted on the house, + A good old-timer dating back along; + But a house isn’t sentient; the house + Didn’t feel anything. And if it did, + Why not regard it as a sacrifice, + And an old-fashioned sacrifice by fire, + Instead of a new-fashioned one at auction? + + Out of a house and so out of a farm + At one stroke (of a match), Brad had to turn + To earn a living on the Concord railroad, + As under-ticket-agent at a station + Where his job, when he wasn’t selling tickets, + Was setting out up track and down, not plants + As on a farm, but planets, evening stars + That varied in their hue from red to green. + + He got a good glass for six hundred dollars. + His new job gave him leisure for star-gazing. + Often he bid me come and have a look + Up the brass barrel, velvet black inside, + At a star quaking in the other end. + I recollect a night of broken clouds + And underfoot snow melted down to ice, + And melting further in the wind to mud. + Bradford and I had out the telescope. + We spread our two legs as we spread its three, + Pointed our thoughts the way we pointed it, + And standing at our leisure till the day broke, + Said some of the best things we ever said. + That telescope was christened the Star-splitter, + Because it didn’t do a thing but split + A star in two or three the way you split + A globule of quicksilver in your hand + With one stroke of your finger in the middle. + It’s a star-splitter if there ever was one + And ought to do some good if splitting stars + ’Sa thing to be compared with splitting wood. + + We’ve looked and looked, but after all where are we? + Do we know any better where we are, + And how it stands between the night to-night + And a man with a smoky lantern chimney? + How different from the way it ever stood? + + + + +_Maple_ + + + Her teacher’s certainty it must be Mabel + Made Maple first take notice of her name. + She asked her father and he told her ‘Maple-- + Maple is right.’ + + ‘But teacher told the school + There’s no such name.’ + + ‘Teachers don’t know as much + As fathers about children, you tell teacher. + You tell her that it’s M-A-P-L-E. + You ask her if she knows a maple tree. + Well, you were named after a maple tree. + Your mother named you. You and she just saw + Each other in passing in the room upstairs, + One coming this way into life, and one + Going the other out of life--you know? + So you can’t have much recollection of her. + She had been having a long look at you. + She put her finger in your cheek so hard + It must have made your dimple there, and said, + “Maple.” I said it too: “Yes, for her name.” + She nodded. So we’re sure there’s no mistake. + I don’t know what she wanted it to mean, + But it seems like some word she left to bid you + Be a good girl--be like a maple tree. + How like a maple tree’s for us to guess. + Or for a little girl to guess sometime. + Not now--at least I shouldn’t try too hard now. + By and by I will tell you all I know + About the different trees, and something, too, + About your mother that perhaps may help.’ + Dangerous self-arousing words to sow. + Luckily all she wanted of her name then + Was to rebuke her teacher with it next day, + And give the teacher a scare as from her father. + Anything further had been wasted on her, + Or so he tried to think to avoid blame. + She would forget it. She all but forgot it. + What he sowed with her slept so long a sleep, + And came so near death in the dark of years, + That when it woke and came to life again + The flower was different from the parent seed. + It came back vaguely at the glass one day, + As she stood saying her name over aloud, + Striking it gently across her lowered eyes + To make it go well with the way she looked. + What was it about her name? Its strangeness lay + In having too much meaning. Other names, + As Lesley, Carol, Irma, Marjorie, + Signified nothing. Rose could have a meaning, + But hadn’t as it went. (She knew a Rose.) + This difference from other names it was + Made people notice it--and notice her. + (They either noticed it, or got it wrong.) + Her problem was to find out what it asked + In dress or manner of the girl who bore it. + If she could form some notion of her mother-- + What she had thought was lovely, and what good. + This was her mother’s childhood home; + The house one story high in front, three stories + On the end it presented to the road. + (The arrangement made a pleasant sunny cellar.) + Her mother’s bedroom was her father’s yet, + Where she could watch her mother’s picture fading. + Once she found for a bookmark in the Bible + A maple leaf she thought must have been laid + In wait for her there. She read every word + Of the two pages it was pressed between + As if it was her mother speaking to her. + But forgot to put the leaf back in closing + And lost the place never to read again. + She was sure, though, there had been nothing in it. + + So she looked for herself, as everyone + Looks for himself, more or less outwardly. + And her self seeking, fitful though it was, + May still have been what led her on to read, + And think a little, and get some city schooling. + She learned shorthand, whatever shorthand may + Have had to do with it--she sometimes wondered. + So, till she found herself in a strange place + For the name Maple to have brought her to; + Taking dictation on a paper pad, + And in the pauses when she raised her eyes + Watching out of a nineteenth story window + An airship laboring with unship-like motion + And a vague all-disturbing roar above the river + Beyond the highest city built with hands. + Someone was saying in such natural tones + She almost wrote the words down on her knee, + ‘Do you know you remind me of a tree-- + A maple tree?’ + + ‘Because my name is Maple?’ + + ‘Isn’t it Mabel? I thought it was Mabel.’ + + ‘No doubt you’ve heard the office call me Mabel. + I have to let them call me what they like.’ + + They were both stirred that he should have divined + Without the name her personal mystery. + It made it seem as if there must be something + She must have missed herself. So they were married, + And took the fancy home with them to live by. + + They went on pilgrimage once to her father’s + (The house one story high in front, three stories + On the side it presented to the road) + To see if there was not some special tree + She might have overlooked. They could find none, + Not so much as a single tree for shade, + Let alone grove of trees for sugar orchard. + She told him of the bookmark maple leaf + In the big Bible, and all she remembered + Of the place marked with it--‘Wave offering, + Something about wave offering, it said.’ + + ‘You’ve never asked your father outright, have you?’ + + ‘I have, and been put off sometime, I think.’ + (This was her faded memory of the way + Once long ago her father had put himself off.) + + ‘Because no telling but it may have been + Something between your father and your mother + Not meant for us at all.’ + + ‘Not meant for me? + Where would the fairness be in giving me + A name to carry for life, and never know + The secret of?’ + + ‘And then it may have been + Something a father couldn’t tell a daughter + As well as could a mother. And again + It may have been their one lapse into fancy + ’Twould be too bad to make him sorry for + By bringing it up to him when he was too old. + Your father feels us round him with our questing, + And holds us off unnecessarily, + As if he didn’t know what little thing + Might lead us on to a discovery. + It was as personal as he could be + About the way he saw it was with you + To say your mother, had she lived, would be + As far again as from being born to bearing.’ + + ‘Just one look more with what you say in mind. + And I give up’; which last look came to nothing. + But, though they now gave up the search forever, + They clung to what one had seen in the other + By inspiration. It proved there was something. + They kept their thoughts away from when the maples + Stood uniform in buckets, and the steam + Of sap and snow rolled off the sugar house. + When they made her related to the maples, + It was the tree the autumn fire ran through + And swept of leathern leaves, but left the bark + Unscorched, unblackened, even, by any smoke. + They always took their holidays in autumn. + Once they came on a maple in a glade, + Standing alone with smooth arms lifted up, + And every leaf of foliage she’d worn + Laid scarlet and pale pink about her feet. + But its age kept them from considering this one. + Twenty-five years ago at Maple’s naming + It hardly could have been a two-leaved seedling + The next cow might have licked up out at pasture. + Could it have been another maple like it? + They hovered for a moment near discovery, + Figurative enough to see the symbol, + But lacking faith in anything to mean + The same at different times to different people. + Perhaps a filial diffidence partly kept them + From thinking it could be a thing so bridal. + And anyway it came too late for Maple. + She used her hands to cover up her eyes. + ‘We would not see the secret if we could now: + We are not looking for it any more.’ + + Thus had a name with meaning, given in death, + Made a girl’s marriage, and ruled in her life. + No matter that the meaning was not clear. + A name with meaning could bring up a child, + Taking the child out of the parents’ hands. + Better a meaningless name, I should say, + As leaving more to nature and happy chance. + Name children some names and see what you do. + + + + +_The Axe-Helve_ + + + I’ve known ere now an interfering branch + Of alder catch my lifted axe behind me. + But that was in the woods, to hold my hand + From striking at another alder’s roots, + And that was, as I say, an alder branch. + This was a man, Baptiste, who stole one day + Behind me on the snow in my own yard + Where I was working at the chopping-block, + And cutting nothing not cut down already. + He caught my axe expertly on the rise, + When all my strength put forth was in his favor, + Held it a moment where it was, to calm me, + Then took it from me--and I let him take it. + I didn’t know him well enough to know + What it was all about. There might be something + He had in mind to say to a bad neighbor + He might prefer to say to him disarmed. + But all he had to tell me in French-English + Was what he thought of--not me, but my axe; + Me only as I took my axe to heart. + It was the bad axe-helve some one had sold me-- + ‘Made on machine,’ he said, ploughing the grain + With a thick thumbnail to show how it ran + Across the handle’s long drawn serpentine, + Like the two strokes across a dollar sign. + ‘You give her one good crack, she’s snap raght off. + Den where’s your hax-ead flying t’rough de hair?’ + Admitted; and yet, what was that to him? + + ‘Come on my house and I put you one in + What’s las’ awhile--good hick’ry what’s grow crooked, + De second growt’ I cut myself--tough, tough!’ + + Something to sell? That wasn’t how it sounded. + + ‘Den when you say you come? It’s cost you nothing. + To-naght?’ + + As well to-night as any night. + + Beyond an over-warmth of kitchen stove + My welcome differed from no other welcome. + Baptiste knew best why I was where I was. + So long as he would leave enough unsaid, + I shouldn’t mind his being overjoyed + (If overjoyed he was) at having got me + Where I must judge if what he knew about an axe + That not everybody else knew was to count + For nothing in the measure of a neighbor. + Hard if, though cast away for life with Yankees, + A Frenchman couldn’t get his human rating! + + Mrs. Baptiste came in and rocked a chair + That had as many motions as the world: + One back and forward, in and out of shadow, + That got her nowhere; one more gradual, + Sideways, that would have run her on the stove + In time, had she not realized her danger + And caught herself up bodily, chair and all, + And set herself back where she started from. + ‘She ain’t spick too much Henglish--dat’s too bad.’ + + I was afraid, in brightening first on me, + Then on Baptiste, as if she understood + What passed between us, she was only feigning. + Baptiste was anxious for her; but no more + Than for himself, so placed he couldn’t hope + To keep his bargain of the morning with me + In time to keep me from suspecting him + Of really never having meant to keep it. + + Needlessly soon he had his axe-helves out, + A quiverful to choose from, since he wished me + To have the best he had, or had to spare-- + Not for me to ask which, when what he took + Had beauties he had to point me out at length + To insure their not being wasted on me. + He liked to have it slender as a whipstock, + Free from the least knot, equal to the strain + Of bending like a sword across the knee. + He showed me that the lines of a good helve + Were native to the grain before the knife + Expressed them, and its curves were no false curves + Put on it from without. And there its strength lay + For the hard work. He chafed its long white body + From end to end with his rough hand shut round it. + He tried it at the eye-hole in the axe-head. + ‘Hahn, hahn,’ he mused, ‘don’t need much taking down.’ + Baptiste knew how to make a short job long + For love of it, and yet not waste time either. + + Do you know, what we talked about was knowledge? + Baptiste on his defence about the children + He kept from school, or did his best to keep-- + Whatever school and children and our doubts + Of laid-on education had to do + With the curves of his axe-helves and his having + Used these unscrupulously to bring me + To see for once the inside of his house. + Was I desired in friendship, partly as some one + To leave it to, whether the right to hold + Such doubts of education should depend + Upon the education of those who held them? + + But now he brushed the shavings from his knee + And stood the axe there on its horse’s hoof, + Erect, but not without its waves, as when + The snake stood up for evil in the Garden,-- + Top-heavy with a heaviness his short, + Thick hand made light of, steel-blue chin drawn down + And in a little--a French touch in that. + Baptiste drew back and squinted at it, pleased; + ‘See how she’s cock her head!’ + + + + +_The Grindstone_ + + + Having a wheel and four legs of its own + Has never availed the cumbersome grindstone + To get it anywhere that I can see. + These hands have helped it go, and even race; + Not all the motion, though, they ever lent, + Not all the miles it may have thought it went, + Have got it one step from the starting place. + It stands beside the same old apple tree. + The shadow of the apple tree is thin + Upon it now, its feet are fast in snow. + All other farm machinery’s gone in, + And some of it on no more legs and wheel + Than the grindstone can boast to stand or go. + (I’m thinking chiefly of the wheelbarrow.) + For months it hasn’t known the taste of steel, + Washed down with rusty water in a tin. + But standing outdoors hungry, in the cold, + Except in towns at night, is not a sin. + And, anyway, its standing in the yard + Under a ruinous live apple tree + Has nothing any more to do with me, + Except that I remember how of old + One summer day, all day I drove it hard, + And someone mounted on it rode it hard, + And he and I between us ground a blade. + + I gave it the preliminary spin, + And poured on water (tears it might have been); + And when it almost gayly jumped and flowed, + A Father-Time-like man got on and rode, + Armed with a scythe and spectacles that glowed. + He turned on will-power to increase the load + And slow me down--and I abruptly slowed, + Like coming to a sudden railroad station. + I changed from hand to hand in desperation. + I wondered what machine of ages gone + This represented an improvement on. + For all I knew it may have sharpened spears + And arrowheads itself. Much use for years + Had gradually worn it an oblate + Spheroid that kicked and struggled in its gait, + Appearing to return me hate for hate; + (But I forgive it now as easily + As any other boyhood enemy + Whose pride has failed to get him anywhere). + I wondered who it was the man thought ground-- + The one who held the wheel back or the one + Who gave his life to keep it going round? + I wondered if he really thought it fair + For him to have the say when we were done. + Such were the bitter thoughts to which I turned. + + Not for myself was I so much concerned. + Oh no!--although, of course, I could have found + A better way to pass the afternoon + Than grinding discord out of a grindstone, + And beating insects at their gritty tune. + Nor was I for the man so much concerned. + Once when the grindstone almost jumped its bearing + It looked as if he might be badly thrown + And wounded on his blade. So far from caring, + I laughed inside, and only cranked the faster, + (It ran as if it wasn’t greased but glued); + I’d welcome any moderate disaster + That might be calculated to postpone + What evidently nothing could conclude. + The thing that made me more and more afraid + Was that we’d ground it sharp and hadn’t known, + And now were only wasting precious blade. + And when he raised it dripping once and tried + The creepy edge of it with wary touch, + And viewed it over his glasses funny-eyed, + Only disinterestedly to decide + It needed a turn more, I could have cried + Wasn’t there danger of a turn too much? + Mightn’t we make it worse instead of better? + I was for leaving something to the whetter. + What if it wasn’t all it should be? I’d + Be satisfied if he’d be satisfied. + + + + +_Paul’s Wife_ + + + To drive Paul out of any lumber camp + All that was needed was to say to him, + ‘How is the wife, Paul?’--and he’d disappear. + Some said it was because he had no wife, + And hated to be twitted on the subject. + Others because he’d come within a day + Or so of having one, and then been jilted. + Others because he’d had one once, a good one, + Who’d run away with some one else and left him. + And others still because he had one now + He only had to be reminded of,-- + He was all duty to her in a minute: + He had to run right off to look her up, + As if to say, ‘That’s so, how is my wife? + I hope she isn’t getting into mischief.’ + No one was anxious to get rid of Paul. + He’d been the hero of the mountain camps + Ever since, just to show them, he had slipped + The bark of a whole tamarack off whole, + As clean as boys do off a willow twig + To make a willow whistle on a Sunday + In April by subsiding meadow brooks. + They seemed to ask him just to see him go, + ‘How is the wife, Paul?’ and he always went. + He never stopped to murder anyone + Who asked the question. He just disappeared-- + Nobody knew in what direction, + Although it wasn’t usually long + Before they heard of him in some new camp, + The same Paul at the same old feats of logging. + The question everywhere was why should Paul + Object to being asked a civil question-- + A man you could say almost anything to + Short of a fighting word. You have the answers. + And there was one more not so fair to Paul: + That Paul had married a wife not his equal. + Paul was ashamed of her. To match a hero, + She would have had to be a heroine; + Instead of which she was some half-breed squaw. + But if the story Murphy told was true, + She wasn’t anything to be ashamed of. + + You know Paul could do wonders. Everyone’s + Heard how he thrashed the horses on a load + That wouldn’t budge until they simply stretched + Their rawhide harness from the load to camp. + Paul told the boss the load would be all right, + ‘The sun will bring your load in’--and it did-- + By shrinking the rawhide to natural length. + That’s what is called a stretcher. But I guess + The one about his jumping so’s to land + With both his feet at once against the ceiling, + And then land safely right side up again, + Back on the floor, is fact or pretty near fact. + Well this is such a yarn. Paul sawed his wife + Out of a white-pine log. Murphy was there, + And, as you might say, saw the lady born. + Paul worked at anything in lumbering. + He’d been hard at it taking boards away + For--I forget--the last ambitious sawyer + To want to find out if he couldn’t pile + The lumber on Paul till Paul begged for mercy. + They’d sliced the first slab off a big butt log, + And the sawyer had slammed the carriage back + To slam end on again against the saw teeth. + To judge them by the way they caught themselves + When they saw what had happened to the log, + They must have had a guilty expectation + Something was going to go with their slambanging. + Something had left a broad black streak of grease + On the new wood the whole length of the log + Except, perhaps, a foot at either end. + But when Paul put his finger in the grease, + It wasn’t grease at all, but a long slot. + The log was hollow. They were sawing pine. + ‘First time I ever saw a hollow pine. + That comes of having Paul around the place. + Take it to hell for me,’ the sawyer said. + Everyone had to have a look at it, + And tell Paul what he ought to do about it. + (They treated it as his.) ‘You take a jack-knife, + And spread the opening, and you’ve got a dug-out + All dug to go a-fishing in.’ To Paul + The hollow looked too sound and clean and empty + Ever to have housed birds or beasts or bees. + There was no entrance for them to get in by. + It looked to him like some new kind of hollow + He thought he’d _better_ take his jack-knife to. + So after work that evening he came back + And let enough light into it by cutting + To see if it was empty. He made out in there + A slender length of pith, or was it pith? + It might have been the skin a snake had cast + And left stood up on end inside the tree + The hundred years the tree must have been growing. + More cutting and he had this in both hands, + And, looking from it to the pond near by, + Paul wondered how it would respond to water. + Not a breeze stirred, but just the breath of air + He made in walking slowly to the beach + Blew it once off his hands and almost broke it. + He laid it at the edge where it could drink. + At the first drink it rustled and grew limp. + At the next drink it grew invisible. + Paul dragged the shallows for it with his fingers, + And thought it must have melted. It was gone. + And then beyond the open water, dim with midges, + Where the log drive lay pressed against the boom, + It slowly rose a person, rose a girl, + Her wet hair heavy, on her like a helmet, + Who, leaning on a log looked back at Paul. + And that made Paul in turn look back + To see if it was anyone behind him + That she was looking at instead of him. + Murphy had been there watching all the time, + But from a shed where neither of them could see him. + There was a moment of suspense in birth + When the girl seemed too water-logged to live, + Before she caught her first breath with a gasp + And laughed. Then she climbed slowly to her feet, + And walked off talking to herself or Paul + Across the logs like backs of alligators, + Paul taking after her around the pond. + + Next evening Murphy and some other fellows + Got drunk, and tracked the pair up Catamount, + From the bare top of which there is a view + To other hills across a kettle valley. + And there, well after dark, let Murphy tell it, + They saw Paul and his creature keeping house. + It was the only glimpse that anyone + Has had of Paul and her since Murphy saw them + Falling in love across the twilight mill-pond. + More than a mile across the wilderness + They sat together half-way up a cliff + In a small niche let into it, the girl + Brightly, as if a star played on the place, + Paul darkly, like her shadow. All the light + Was from the girl herself, though, not from a star, + As was apparent from what happened next. + All those great ruffians put their throats together, + And let out a loud yell, and threw a bottle, + As a brute tribute of respect to beauty. + Of course the bottle fell short by a mile, + But the shout reached the girl and put her light out. + She went out like a firefly, and that was all. + + So there were witnesses that Paul was married, + And not to anyone to be ashamed of. + Everyone had been wrong in judging Paul. + Murphy told me Paul put on all those airs + About his wife to keep her to himself. + Paul was what’s called a terrible possessor. + Owning a wife with him meant owning her. + She wasn’t anybody else’s business, + Either to praise her, or so much as name her, + And he’d thank people not to think of her. + Murphy’s idea was that a man like Paul + Wouldn’t be spoken to about a wife + In any way the world knew how to speak. + + + + +_Wild Grapes_ + + + What tree may not the fig be gathered from? + The grape may not be gathered from the birch? + It’s all you know the grape, or know the birch. + As a girl gathered from the birch myself + Equally with my weight in grapes, one autumn, + I ought to know what tree the grape is fruit of. + I was born, I suppose, like anyone, + And grew to be a little boyish girl + My brother could not always leave at home. + But that beginning was wiped out in fear + The day I swung suspended with the grapes, + And was come after like Eurydice + And brought down safely from the upper regions; + And the life I live now’s an extra life + I can waste as I please on whom I please. + So if you see me celebrate two birthdays, + And give myself out as two different ages, + One of them five years younger than I look-- + + One day my brother led me to a glade + Where a white birch he knew of stood alone, + Wearing a thin head-dress of pointed leaves, + And heavy on her heavy hair behind, + Against her neck, an ornament of grapes. + Grapes, I knew grapes from having seen them last year. + One bunch of them, and there began to be + Bunches all round me growing in white birches, + The way they grew round Lief the Lucky’s German; + Mostly as much beyond my lifted hands, though, + As the moon used to seem when I was younger, + And only freely to be had for climbing. + My brother did the climbing; and at first + Threw me down grapes to miss and scatter + And have to hunt for in sweet fern and hardhack; + Which gave him some time to himself to eat, + But not so much, perhaps, as a boy needed. + So then, to make me wholly self-supporting, + He climbed still higher and bent the tree to earth, + And put it in my hands to pick my own grapes. + ‘Here, take a tree-top, I’ll get down another. + Hold on with all your might when I let go.’ + I said I had the tree. It wasn’t true. + The opposite was true. The tree had me. + The minute it was left with me alone + It caught me up as if I were the fish + And it the fishpole. So I was translated + To loud cries from my brother of ‘Let go! + Don’t you know anything, you girl? Let go!’ + But I, with something of the baby grip + Acquired ancestrally in just such trees + When wilder mothers than our wildest now + Hung babies out on branches by the hands + To dry or wash or tan, I don’t know which + (You’ll have to ask an evolutionist)-- + I held on uncomplainingly for life. + My brother tried to make me laugh to help me. + ‘What are you doing up there in those grapes? + Don’t be afraid. A few of them won’t hurt you. + I mean, they won’t pick you if you don’t them.’ + Much danger of my picking anything! + By that time I was pretty well reduced + To a philosophy of hang-and-let-hang. + ‘Now you know how it feels,’ my brother said, + ‘To be a bunch of fox-grapes, as they call them, + That when it thinks it has escaped the fox + By growing where it shouldn’t--on a birch, + Where a fox wouldn’t think to look for it-- + And if he looked, and found it, couldn’t reach it-- + Just then come you and I to gather it. + Only you have the advantage of the grapes + In one way: you have one more stem to cling by, + And promise more resistance to the picker.’ + + One by one I lost off my hat and shoes, + And still I clung. I let my head fall back, + And shut my eyes against the sun, my ears + Against my brother’s nonsense; ‘Drop,’ he said, + ‘I’ll catch you in my arms. It isn’t far.’ + (Stated in lengths of him it might not be.) + ‘Drop or I’ll shake the tree and shake you down.’ + Grim silence on my part as I sank lower, + My small wrists stretching till they showed the banjo + ‘Why, if she isn’t serious about it! + Hold tight awhile till I think what to do. + I’ll bend the tree down and let you down by it.’ + I don’t know much about the letting down; + But once I felt ground with my stocking feet + And the world came revolving back to me, + I know I looked long at my curled-up fingers, + Before I straightened them and brushed the bark off. + My brother said: ‘Don’t you weigh anything? + Try to weigh something next time, so you won’t + Be run off with by birch trees into space.’ + + It wasn’t my not weighing anything + So much as my not knowing anything-- + My brother had been nearer right before. + I had not taken the first step in knowledge; + I had not learned to let go with the hands, + As still I have not learned to with the heart, + And have no wish to with the heart--nor need, + That I can see. The mind--is not the heart. + I may yet live, as I know others live, + To wish in vain to let go with the mind-- + Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me + That I need learn to let go with the heart. + + + + +_Place for a Third_ + + + Nothing to say to all those marriages! + She had made three herself to three of his. + The score was even for them, three to three. + But come to die she found she cared so much: + She thought of children in a burial row; + Three children in a burial row were sad. + One man’s three women in a burial row + Somehow made her impatient with the man. + And so she said to Laban, ‘You have done + A good deal right; don’t do the last thing wrong. + Don’t make me lie with those two other women.’ + + Laban said, No, he would not make her lie + With anyone but that she had a mind to, + If that was how she felt, of course, he said. + She went her way. But Laban having caught + This glimpse of lingering person in Eliza, + And anxious to make all he could of it + With something he remembered in himself, + Tried to think how he could exceed his promise, + And give good measure to the dead, though than + If that was how she felt, he kept repeating. + His first thought under pressure was a grave + In a new boughten grave plot by herself, + Under he didn’t care how great a stone: + He’d sell a yoke of steers to pay for it. + And weren’t there special cemetery flowers, + That, once grief sets to growing, grief may rest: + The flowers will go on with grief awhile, + And no one seem neglecting or neglected? + A prudent grief will not despise such aids. + He thought of evergreen and everlasting. + And then he had a thought worth many of these. + Somewhere must be the grave of the young boy + Who married her for playmate more than helpmate, + And sometimes laughed at what it was between them. + How would she like to sleep her last with him? + Where was his grave? Did Laban know his name? + + He found the grave a town or two away, + The headstone cut with _John, Beloved Husband_, + Beside it room reserved, the say a sister’s, + A never-married sister’s of that husband, + Whether Eliza would be welcome there. + The dead was bound to silence: ask the sister. + So Laban saw the sister, and, saying nothing + Of where Eliza wanted _not_ to lie, + And who had thought to lay her with her first love, + Begged simply for the grave. The sister’s face + Fell all in wrinkles of responsibility. + She wanted to do right. She’d have to think. + Laban was old and poor, yet seemed to care; + And she was old and poor--but she cared, too. + They sat. She cast one dull, old look at him, + Then turned him out to go on other errands + She said he might attend to in the village, + While she made up her mind how much she cared-- + And how much Laban cared--and why he cared, + (She made shrewd eyes to see where he came in.) + She’d looked Eliza up her second time, + A widow at her second husband’s grave, + And offered her a home to rest awhile + Before she went the poor man’s widow’s way, + Housekeeping for the next man out of wedlock. + She and Eliza had been friends through all. + Who was she to judge marriage in a world + Whose Bible’s so confused in marriage counsel? + The sister had not come across this Laban; + A decent product of life’s ironing-out; + She must not keep him waiting. Time would press + Between the death day and the funeral day. + So when she saw him coming in the street + She hurried her decision to be ready + To meet him with his answer at the door. + Laban had known about what it would be + From the way she had set her poor old mouth, + To do, as she had put it, what was right. + + She gave it through the screen door closed between + ‘No, not with John. There wouldn’t be no sense. + Eliza’s had too many other men.’ + + Laban was forced to fall back on his plan + To buy Eliza a plot to lie alone in: + Which gives him for himself a choice of lots + When his time comes to die and settle down. + + + + +_Two Witches_ + + +I + +THE WITCH OF COÖS + + I staid the night for shelter at a farm + Behind the mountain, with a mother and son, + Two old-believers. They did all the talking. + + MOTHER. Folks think a witch who has familiar spirits + She could call up to pass a winter evening, + But won’t, should be burned at the stake or something. + Summoning spirits isn’t ‘Button, button, + Who’s got the button,’ I would have them know. + + SON. Mother can make a common table rear + And kick with two legs like an army mule. + + MOTHER. And when I’ve done it, what good have I done? + Rather than tip a table for you, let me + Tell you what Ralle the Sioux Control once told me. + He said the dead had souls, but when I asked him + How could that be--I thought the dead were souls, + He broke my trance. Don’t that make you suspicious + That there’s something the dead are keeping back? + Yes, there’s something the dead are keeping back. + + SON. You wouldn’t want to tell him what we have + Up attic, mother? + + MOTHER. Bones--a skeleton. + + SON. But the headboard of mother’s bed is pushed + Against the attic door: the door is nailed. + It’s harmless. Mother hears it in the night + Halting perplexed behind the barrier + Of door and headboard. Where it wants to get + Is back into the cellar where it came from. + + MOTHER. We’ll never let them, will we, son! We’ll never! + + SON. It left the cellar forty years ago + And carried itself like a pile of dishes + Up one flight from the cellar to the kitchen, + Another from the kitchen to the bedroom, + Another from the bedroom to the attic, + Right past both father and mother, and neither stopped it. + Father had gone upstairs; mother was downstairs. + I was a baby: I don’t know where I was. + + MOTHER. The only fault my husband found with me-- + I went to sleep before I went to bed, + Especially in winter when the bed + Might just as well be ice and the clothes snow. + The night the bones came up the cellar-stairs + Toffile had gone to bed alone and left me, + But left an open door to cool the room off + So as to sort of turn me out of it. + I was just coming to myself enough + To wonder where the cold was coming from, + When I heard Toffile upstairs in the bedroom + And thought I heard him downstairs in the cellar. + The board we had laid down to walk dry-shod on + When there was water in the cellar in spring + Struck the hard cellar bottom. And then someone + Began the stairs, two footsteps for each step, + The way a man with one leg and a crutch, + Or a little child, comes up. It wasn’t Toffile: + It wasn’t anyone who could be there. + The bulkhead double-doors were double-locked + And swollen tight and buried under snow. + The cellar windows were banked up with sawdust + And swollen tight and buried under snow. + It was the bones. I knew them--and good reason. + My first impulse was to get to the knob + And hold the door. But the bones didn’t try + The door; they halted helpless on the landing, + Waiting for things to happen in their favor. + The faintest restless rustling ran all through them. + I never could have done the thing I did + If the wish hadn’t been too strong in me + To see how they were mounted for this walk. + I had a vision of them put together + Not like a man, but like a chandelier. + So suddenly I flung the door wide on him. + A moment he stood balancing with emotion, + And all but lost himself. (A tongue of fire + Flashed out and licked along his upper teeth. + Smoke rolled inside the sockets of his eyes.) + Then he came at me with one hand outstretched, + The way he did in life once; but this time + I struck the hand off brittle on the floor, + And fell back from him on the floor myself. + The finger-pieces slid in all directions. + (Where did I see one of those pieces lately? + Hand me my button-box--it must be there.) + I sat up on the floor and shouted, ‘Toffile, + It’s coming up to you.’ It had its choice + Of the door to the cellar or the hall. + It took the hall door for the novelty, + And set off briskly for so slow a thing, + Still going every which way in the joints, though, + So that it looked like lightning or a scribble, + From the slap I had just now given its hand. + I listened till it almost climbed the stairs + From the hall to the only finished bedroom, + Before I got up to do anything; + Then ran and shouted, ‘Shut the bedroom door, + Toffile, for my sake!’ ‘Company?’ he said, + ‘Don’t make me get up; I’m too warm in bed.’ + So lying forward weakly on the handrail + I pushed myself upstairs, and in the light + (The kitchen had been dark) I had to own + I could see nothing. ‘Toffile, I don’t see it. + It’s with us in the room though. It’s the bones.’ + ‘What bones?’ ‘The cellar bones--out of the grave.’ + That made him throw his bare legs out of bed + And sit up by me and take hold of me. + I wanted to put out the light and see + If I could see it, or else mow the room, + With our arms at the level of our knees, + And bring the chalk-pile down. ‘I’ll tell you what-- + It’s looking for another door to try. + The uncommonly deep snow has made him think + Of his old song, _The Wild Colonial Boy_, + He always used to sing along the tote-road. + He’s after an open door to get out-doors. + Let’s trap him with an open door up attic.’ + Toffile agreed to that, and sure enough, + Almost the moment he was given an opening, + The steps began to climb the attic stairs. + I heard them. Toffile didn’t seem to hear them. + ‘Quick!’ I slammed to the door and held the knob. + ‘Toffile, get nails.’ I made him nail the door shut, + And push the headboard of the bed against it. + Then we asked was there anything + Up attic that we’d ever want again. + The attic was less to us than the cellar. + If the bones liked the attic, let them have it. + Let them stay in the attic. When they sometimes + Come down the stairs at night and stand perplexed + Behind the door and headboard of the bed, + Brushing their chalky skull with chalky fingers, + With sounds like the dry rattling of a shutter, + That’s what I sit up in the dark to say-- + To no one any more since Toffile died. + Let them stay in the attic since they went there. + I promised Toffile to be cruel to them + For helping them be cruel once to him. + + SON. We think they had a grave down in the cellar. + + MOTHER. We know they had a grave down in the cellar. + + SON. We never could find out whose bones they were. + + MOTHER. Yes, we could too, son. Tell the truth for once. + They were a man’s his father killed for me. + I mean a man he killed instead of me. + The least I could do was to help dig their grave. + We were about it one night in the cellar. + Son knows the story: but ’twas not for him + To tell the truth, suppose the time had come. + Son looks surprised to see me end a lie + We’d kept all these years between ourselves + So as to have it ready for outsiders. + But tonight I don’t care enough to lie-- + I don’t remember why I ever cared. + Toffile, if he were here, I don’t believe + Could tell you why he ever cared himself.... + + She hadn’t found the finger-bone she wanted + Among the buttons poured out in her lap. + I verified the name next morning: Toffile. + The rural letter-box said Toffile Lajway. + + +II + +THE PAUPER WITCH OF GRAFTON + + Now that they’ve got it settled whose I be, + I’m going to tell them something they won’t like: + They’ve got it settled wrong, and I can prove it. + Flattered I must be to have two towns fighting + To make a present of me to each other. + They don’t dispose me, either one of them, + To spare them any trouble. Double trouble’s + Always the witch’s motto anyway. + I’ll double theirs for both of them--you watch me. + They’ll find they’ve got the whole thing to do over, + That is, if facts is what they want to go by. + They set a lot (now don’t they?) by a record + Of Arthur Amy’s having once been up + For Hog Reeve in March Meeting here in Warren. + I could have told them any time this twelvemonth + The Arthur Amy I was married to + Couldn’t have been the one they say was up + In Warren at March Meeting for the reason + He wa’n’t but fifteen at the time they say. + The Arthur Amy I was married to + Voted the only times he ever voted, + Which wasn’t many, in the town of Wentworth. + One of the times was when ’twas in the warrant + To see if the town wanted to take over + The tote road to our clearing where we lived. + I’ll tell you who’d remember--Heman Lapish. + Their Arthur Amy was the father of mine. + So now they’ve dragged it through the law courts once + I guess they’d better drag it through again. + Wentworth and Warren’s both good towns to live in, + Only I happen to prefer to live + In Wentworth from now on; and when all’s said, + Right’s right, and the temptation to do right + When I can hurt someone by doing it + Has always been too much for me, it has. + I know of some folks that’d be set up + At having in their town a noted witch: + But most would have to think of the expense + That even I would be. They ought to know + That as a witch I’d often milk a bat + And that’d be enough to last for days. + It’d make my position stronger, think, + If I was to consent to give some sign + To make it surer that I was a witch? + It wa’n’t no sign, I s’pose, when Mallice Huse + Said that I took him out in his old age + And rode all over everything on him + Until I’d had him worn to skin and bones, + And if I’d left him hitched unblanketed + In front of one Town Hall, I’d left him hitched + In front of every one in Grafton County. + Some cried shame on me not to blanket him, + The poor old man. It would have been all right + If some one hadn’t said to gnaw the posts + He stood beside and leave his trade mark on them, + So they could recognize them. Not a post + That they could hear tell of was scarified. + They made him keep on gnawing till he whined. + Then that same smarty someone said to look-- + He’d bet Huse was a cribber and had gnawed + The crib he slept in--and as sure’s you’re born + They found he’d gnawed the four posts of his bed, + All four of them to Splinters. What did that prove? + Not that he hadn’t gnawed the hitching posts + He said he had besides. Because a horse + Gnaws in the stable ain’t no proof to me + He don’t gnaw trees and posts and fences too. + But everybody took it for a proof. + I was a strapping girl of twenty then. + The smarty someone who spoiled everything + Was Arthur Amy. You know who he was. + That was the way he started courting me. + He never said much after we were married, + But I mistrusted he was none too proud + Of having interfered in the Huse business. + I guess he found he got more out of me + By having me a witch. Or something happened + To turn him round. He got to saying things + To undo what he’d done and make it right. + Like, ‘No, she ain’t come back from kiting yet. + Last night was one of her nights out. She’s kiting. + She thinks when the wind makes a night of it + She might as well herself.’ But he liked best + To let on he was plagued to death with me: + If anyone had seen me coming home + Over the ridgepole, ‘stride of a broomstick, + As often as he had in the tail of the night, + He guessed they’d know what he had to put up with. + Well, I showed Arthur Amy signs enough + Off from the house as far as we could keep + And from barn smells you can’t wash out of ploughed ground + With all the rain and snow of seven years; + And I don’t mean just skulls of Roger’s Rangers + On Moosilauke, but woman signs to man, + Only bewitched so I would last him longer. + Up where the trees grow short, the mosses tall, + I made him gather me wet snow berries + On slippery rocks beside a waterfall. + I made him do it for me in the dark. + And he liked everything I made him do. + I hope if he is where he sees me now + He’s so far off he can’t see what I’ve come to. + You _can_ come down from everything to nothing. + All is, if I’d a-known when I was young + And full of it, that this would be the end, + It doesn’t seem as if I’d had the courage + To make so free and kick up in folks’ faces. + I might have, but it doesn’t seem as if. + + + + +_An Empty Threat_ + + + I stay; + But it isn’t as if + There wasn’t always Hudson’s Bay + And the fur trade, + A small skiff + And a paddle blade. + + I can just see my tent pegged, + And me on the floor, + Crosslegged, + And a trapper looking in at the door + With furs to sell. + + His name’s Joe, + Alias John, + And between what he doesn’t know + And won’t tell + About where Henry Hudson’s gone, + I can’t say he’s much help; + But we get on. + + The seal yelp + On an ice cake. + It’s not men by some mistake? + + No, + There’s not a soul + For a wind-break + Between me and the North Pole-- + + Except always John-Joe, + My French Indian Esquimaux, + And he’s off setting traps, + In one himself perhaps. + + Give a head shake + Over so much bay + Thrown away + In snow and mist + That doesn’t exist, + I was going to say, + For God, man or beast’s sake, + Yet does perhaps for all three. + + Don’t ask Joe + What it is to him. + It’s sometimes dim + What it is to me, + Unless it be + It’s the old captain’s dark fate + Who failed to find or force a strait + In its two-thousand-mile coast; + And his crew left him where he failed, + And nothing came of all he sailed. + + It’s to say, ‘You and I’ + To such a ghost, + ‘You and I + Off here + With the dead race of the Great Auk!’ + And, ‘Better defeat almost, + If seen clear, + Than life’s victories of doubt + That need endless talk talk + To make them out.’ + + + + +_A Fountain, a Bottle, a Donkey’s Ears and Some Books_ + + + Old Davis owned a solid mica mountain + In Dalton that would some day make his fortune. + There’d been some Boston people out to see it: + And experts said that deep down in the mountain + The mica sheets were big as plate glass windows. + He’d like to take me there and show it to me. + + ‘I’ll tell you what you show me. You remember + You said you knew the place where once, on Kinsman, + The early Mormons made a settlement + And built a stone baptismal font outdoors-- + But Smith, or some one, called them off the mountain + To go West to a worse fight with the desert. + You said you’d seen the stone baptismal font. + Well, take me there.’ + + ‘Some day I will.’ + + ‘Today.’ + + ‘Huh, that old bath-tub, what is that to see? + Let’s talk about it.’ + + ‘Let’s go see the place.’ + + ‘To shut you up I’ll tell you what I’ll do: + I’ll find that fountain if it takes all summer, + And both of our united strengths, to do it.’ + + ‘You’ve lost it, then?’ + + ‘Not so but I can find it. + No doubt it’s grown up some to woods around it. + The mountain may have shifted since I saw it + In eighty-five.’ + + ‘As long ago as that?’ + + ‘If I remember rightly, it had sprung + A leak and emptied then. And forty years + Can do a good deal to bad masonry. + You won’t see any Mormon swimming in it. + But you have said it, and we’re off to find it. + Old as I am, I’m going to let myself + Be dragged by you all over everywhere--’ + + ‘I thought you were a guide.’ + + ‘I am a guide, + And that’s why I can’t decently refuse you.’ + + We made a day of it out of the world, + Ascending to descend to reascend. + The old man seriously took his bearings, + And spoke his doubts in every open place. + + We came out on a look-off where we faced + A cliff, and on the cliff a bottle painted, + Or stained by vegetation from above, + A likeness to surprise the thrilly tourist. + + ‘Well, if I haven’t brought you to the fountain, + At least I’ve brought you to the famous Bottle.’ + + ‘I won’t accept the substitute. It’s empty.’ + + ‘So’s everything.’ + + ‘I want my fountain.’ + + ‘I guess you’d find the fountain just as empty. + And anyway this tells me where I am.’ + + ‘Hadn’t you long suspected where you were?’ + + ‘You mean miles from that Mormon settlement? + Look here, you treat your guide with due respect + If you don’t want to spend the night outdoors. + I vow we must be near the place from where + The two converging slides, the avalanches, + On Marshall, look like donkey’s ears. + We may as well see that and save the day.’ + + ‘Don’t donkey’s ears suggest we shake our own?’ + + ‘For God’s sake, aren’t you fond of viewing nature? + You don’t like nature. All you like is books. + What signify a donkey’s ears and bottle, + However natural? Give you your books! + Well then, right here is where I show you books. + Come straight down off this mountain just as fast + As we can fall and keep a-bouncing on our feet. + It’s hell for knees unless done hell-for-leather.’ + + ‘Be ready,’ I thought, ‘for almost anything.’ + + We struck a road I didn’t recognize, + But welcomed for the chance to lave my shoes + In dust once more. We followed this a mile, + Perhaps, to where it ended at a house + I didn’t know was there. It was the kind + To bring me to for broad-board panelling. + I never saw so good a house deserted. + + ‘Excuse me if I ask you in a window + That happens to be broken,’ Davis said. + ‘The outside doors as yet have held against us. + I want to introduce you to the people + Who used to live here. They were Robinsons. + You must have heard of Clara Robinson, + The poetess who wrote the book of verses + And had it published. It was all about + The posies on her inner window sill, + And the birds on her outer window sill, + And how she tended both, or had them tended: + She never tended anything herself. + She was “shut in” for life. She lived her whole + Life long in bed, and wrote her things in bed. + I’ll show you how she had her sills extended + To entertain the birds and hold the flowers. + Our business first’s up attic with her books.’ + + We trod uncomfortably on crunching glass + Through a house stripped of everything + Except, it seemed, the poetess’s poems. + Books, I should say!--if books are what is needed. + A whole edition in a packing-case, + That, overflowing like a horn of plenty, + Or like the poetess’s heart of love, + Had spilled them near the window toward the light, + Where driven rain had wet and swollen them. + Enough to stock a village library-- + Unfortunately all of one kind, though. + They had been brought home from some publisher + And taken thus into the family. + Boys and bad hunters had known what to do + With stone and lead to unprotected glass: + Shatter it inward on the unswept floors. + How had the tender verse escaped their outrage? + By being invisible for what it was, + Or else by some remoteness that defied them + To find out what to do to hurt a poem. + Yet oh! the tempting flatness of a book, + To send it sailing out the attic window + Till it caught wind, and, opening out its covers, + Tried to improve on sailing like a tile + By flying like a bird (silent in flight, + But all the burden of its body song), + Only to tumble like a stricken bird, + And lie in stones and bushes unretrieved. + Books were not thrown irreverently about. + They simply lay where some one now and then, + Having tried one, had dropped it at his feet + And left it lying where it fell rejected. + Here were all those the poetess’s life + Had been too short to sell or give away. + + ‘Take one,’ Old Davis bade me graciously. + + ‘Why not take two or three?’ + + ‘Take all you want. + Good-looking books like that.’ He picked one fresh + In virgin wrapper from deep in the box, + And stroked it with a horny-handed kindness. + He read in one and I read in another, + Both either looking for or finding something. + + The attic wasps went missing by like bullets. + + I was soon satisfied for the time being. + + All the way home I kept remembering + The small book in my pocket. It was there. + The poetess had sighed, I knew, in heaven + At having eased her heart of one more copy-- + Legitimately. My demand upon her, + Though slight, was a demand. She felt the tug. + In time she would be rid of all her books. + + + + +_I Will Sing You One-O_ + + + It was long I lay + Awake that night + Wishing the tower + Would name the hour + And tell me whether + To call it day + (Though not yet light) + And give up sleep. + The snow fell deep + With the hiss of spray; + Two winds would meet, + One down one street, + One down another, + And fight in a smother + Of dust and feather. + I could not say, + But feared the cold + Had checked the pace + Of the tower clock + By tying together + Its hands of gold + Before its face. + + Then came one knock! + A note unruffled + Of earthly weather, + Though strange and muffled. + The tower said, ‘One!’ + And then a steeple. + They spoke to themselves + And such few people + As winds might rouse + From sleeping warm + (But not unhouse). + They left the storm + That struck _en masse_ + My window glass + Like a beaded fur. + In that grave One + They spoke of the sun + And moon and stars, + Saturn and Mars + And Jupiter. + Still more unfettered, + They left the named + And spoke of the lettered, + The sigmas and taus + Of constellations. + They filled their throats + With the furthest bodies + To which man sends his + Speculation, + Beyond which God is; + The cosmic motes + Of yawning lenses. + Their solemn peals + Were not their own: + They spoke for the clock + With whose vast wheels + Theirs interlock. + In that grave word + Uttered alone + The utmost star + Trembled and stirred, + Though set so far + Its whirling frenzies + Appear like standing + In one self station. + It has not ranged, + And save for the wonder + Of once expanding + To be a nova, + It has not changed + To the eye of man + On planets over + Around and under + It in creation + Since man began + To drag down man + And nation nation. + + + + +_Fragmentary Blue_ + + + Why make so much of fragmentary blue + In here and there a bird, or butterfly, + Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye, + When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue? + + Since earth is earth, perhaps, not heaven (as yet)-- + Though some savants make earth include the sky; + And blue so far above us comes so high, + It only gives our wish for blue a whet. + + + + +_Fire and Ice_ + + + Some say the world will end in fire, + Some say in ice. + From what I’ve tasted of desire + I hold with those who favor fire. + But if it had to perish twice, + I think I know enough of hate + To say that for destruction ice + Is also great + And would suffice. + + + + +_In a Disused Graveyard_ + + + The living come with grassy tread + To read the gravestones on the hill; + The graveyard draws the living still, + But never any more the dead. + + The verses in it say and say: + ‘The ones who living come today + To read the stones and go away + Tomorrow dead will come to stay.’ + + So sure of death the marbles rhyme, + Yet can’t help marking all the time + How no one dead will seem to come. + What is it men are shrinking from? + + It would be easy to be clever + And tell the stones: Men hate to die + And have stopped dying now forever. + I think they would believe the lie. + + + + +_Dust of Snow_ + + + The way a crow + Shook down on me + The dust of snow + From a hemlock tree + + Has given my heart + A change of mood + And saved some part + Of a day I had rued. + + + + +_To E. T._ + + + I slumbered with your poems on my breast + Spread open as I dropped them half-read through + Like dove wings on a figure on a tomb + To see, if in a dream they brought of you, + + I might not have the chance I missed in life + Through some delay, and call you to your face + First soldier, and then poet, and then both, + Who died a soldier-poet of your race. + + I meant, you meant, that nothing should remain + Unsaid between us, brother, and this remained-- + And one thing more that was not then to say: + The Victory for what it lost and gained. + + You went to meet the shell’s embrace of fire + On Vimy Ridge; and when you fell that day + The war seemed over more for you than me, + But now for me than you--the other way. + + How over, though, for even me who knew + The foe thrust back unsafe beyond the Rhine, + If I was not to speak of it to you + And see you pleased once more with words of mine? + + + + +_Nothing Gold Can Stay_ + + + Nature’s first green is gold, + Her hardest hue to hold. + Her early leaf’s a flower; + But only so an hour. + Then leaf subsides to leaf. + So Eden sank to grief, + So dawn goes down to day. + Nothing gold can stay. + + + + +_The Runaway_ + + + Once when the snow of the year was beginning to fall, + We stopped by a mountain pasture to say, ‘Whose colt?’ + A little Morgan had one forefoot on the wall, + The other curled at his breast. He dipped his head + And snorted at us. And then he had to bolt. + We heard the miniature thunder where he fled, + And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim and grey, + Like a shadow against the curtain of falling flakes. + ‘I think the little fellow’s afraid of the snow. + He isn’t winter-broken. It isn’t play + With the little fellow at all. He’s running away. + I doubt if even his mother could tell him, “Sakes, + It’s only weather.” He’d think she didn’t know! + Where is his mother? He can’t be out alone.’ + And now he comes again with clatter of stone, + And mounts the wall again with whited eyes + And all his tail that isn’t hair up straight. + He shudders his coat as if to throw off flies. + ‘Whoever it is that leaves him out so late, + When other creatures have gone to stall and bin, + Ought to be told to come and take him in.’ + + + + +_The Aim Was Song_ + + + Before man came to blow it right + The wind once blew itself untaught, + And did its loudest day and night + In any rough place where it caught. + + Man came to tell it what was wrong: + It hadn’t found the place to blow; + It blew too hard--the aim was song. + And listen--how it ought to go! + + He took a little in his mouth, + And held it long enough for north + To be converted into south, + And then by measure blew it forth. + + By measure. It was word and note, + The wind the wind had meant to be-- + A little through the lips and throat. + The aim was song--the wind could see. + + + + +_Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening_ + + + Whose woods these are I think I know. + His house is in the village though; + He will not see me stopping here + To watch his woods fill up with snow. + + My little horse must think it queer + To stop without a farmhouse near + Between the woods and frozen lake + The darkest evening of the year. + + He gives his harness bells a shake + To ask if there is some mistake. + The only other sound’s the sweep + Of easy wind and downy flake. + + The woods are lovely, dark and deep. + But I have promises to keep, + And miles to go before I sleep, + And miles to go before I sleep. + + + + +_For Once, Then, Something_ + + + Others taunt me with having knelt at well-curbs + Always wrong to the light, so never seeing + Deeper down in the well than where the water + Gives me back in a shining surface picture + Me myself in the summer heaven godlike + Looking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs. + _Once_, when trying with chin against a well-curb, + I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture, + Through the picture, a something white, uncertain, + Something more of the depths--and then I lost it. + Water came to rebuke the too clear water. + One drop fell from a fern, and lo, a ripple + Shook whatever it was lay there at bottom, + Blurred it, blotted it out. What was that whiteness? + Truth? A pebble of quartz? For once, then, something. + + + + +_Blue-Butterfly Day_ + + + It is blue-butterfly day here in spring, + And with these sky-flakes down in flurry on flurry + There is more unmixed color on the wing + Than flowers will show for days unless they hurry. + + But these are flowers that fly and all but sing: + And now from having ridden out desire + They lie closed over in the wind and cling + Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire. + + + + +_The Onset_ + + + Always the same, when on a fated night + At last the gathered snow lets down as white + As may be in dark woods, and with a song + It shall not make again all winter long + Of hissing on the yet uncovered ground, + I almost stumble looking up and round, + As one who overtaken by the end + Gives up his errand, and lets death descend + Upon him where he is, with nothing done + To evil, no important triumph won, + More than if life had never been begun. + + Yet all the precedent is on my side: + I know that winter death has never tried + The earth but it has failed: the snow may heap + In long storms an undrifted four feet deep + As measured against maple, birch and oak, + It cannot check the peeper’s silver croak; + And I shall see the snow all go down hill + In water of a slender April rill + That flashes tail through last year’s withered brake + And dead weeds, like a disappearing snake. + Nothing will be left white but here a birch, + And there a clump of houses with a church. + + + + +_To Earthward_ + + + Love at the lips was touch + As sweet as I could bear; + And once that seemed too much; + I lived on air + + That crossed me from sweet things, + The flow of--was it musk + From hidden grapevine springs + Down hill at dusk? + + I had the swirl and ache + From sprays of honeysuckle + That when they’re gathered shake + Dew on the knuckle. + + I craved strong sweets, but those + Seemed strong when I was young; + The petal of the rose + It was that stung. + + Now no joy but lacks salt + That is not dashed with pain + And weariness and fault; + I crave the stain + + Of tears, the aftermark + Of almost too much love, + The sweet of bitter bark + And burning clove. + + When stiff and sore and scarred + I take away my hand + From leaning on it hard + In grass and sand, + + The hurt is not enough: + I long for weight and strength + To feel the earth as rough + To all my length. + + + + +_Good-Bye and Keep Cold_ + + + This saying good-bye on the edge of the dark + And the cold to an orchard so young in the bark + Reminds me of all that can happen to harm + An orchard away at the end of the farm + All winter, cut off by a hill from the house. + I don’t want it girdled by rabbit and mouse, + I don’t want it dreamily nibbled for browse + By deer, and I don’t want it budded by grouse. + (If certain it wouldn’t be idle to call + I’d summon grouse, rabbit, and deer to the wall + And warn them away with a stick for a gun.) + I don’t want it stirred by the heat of the sun. + (We made it secure against being, I hope, + By setting it out on a northerly slope.) + No orchard’s the worse for the wintriest storm; + But one thing about it, it mustn’t get warm. + ‘How often already you’ve had to be told, + Keep cold, young orchard. Good-bye and keep cold. + Dread fifty above more than fifty below.’ + I have to be gone for a season or so. + My business awhile is with different trees, + Less carefully nurtured, less fruitful than these, + And such as is done to their wood with an axe-- + Maples and birches and tamaracks. + I wish I could promise to lie in the night + And think of an orchard’s arboreal plight + When slowly (and nobody comes with a light) + Its heart sinks lower under the sod. + But something has to be left to God. + + + + +_Two Look at Two_ + + + Love and forgetting might have carried them + A little further up the mountain side + With night so near, but not much further up. + They must have halted soon in any case + With thoughts of the path back, how rough it was + With rock and washout, and unsafe in darkness; + When they were halted by a tumbled wall + With barbed-wire binding. They stood facing this, + Spending what onward impulse they still had + In one last look the way they must not go, + On up the failing path, where, if a stone + Or earthslide moved at night, it moved itself; + No footstep moved it. ‘This is all,’ they sighed, + ‘Good-night to woods.’ But not so; there was more. + A doe from round a spruce stood looking at them + Across the wall, as near the wall as they. + She saw them in their field, they her in hers. + The difficulty of seeing what stood still, + Like some up-ended boulder split in two, + Was in her clouded eyes: they saw no fear there. + She seemed to think that two thus they were safe. + Then, as if they were something that, though strange, + She could not trouble her mind with too long, + She sighed and passed unscared along the wall. + ‘_This_, then, is all. What more is there to ask?’ + But no, not yet. A snort to bid them wait. + A buck from round the spruce stood looking at them + Across the wall as near the wall as they. + This was an antlered buck of lusty nostril, + Not the same doe come back into her place. + He viewed them quizzically with jerks of head, + As if to ask, ‘Why don’t you make some motion? + Or give some sign of life? Because you can’t. + I doubt if you’re as living as you look.’ + Thus till he had them almost feeling dared + To stretch a proffering hand--and a spell-breaking. + Then he too passed unscared along the wall. + Two had seen two, whichever side you spoke from. + ‘This _must_ be all.’ It was all. Still they stood, + A great wave from it going over them, + As if the earth in one unlooked-for favor + Had made them certain earth returned their love. + + + + +_Not to Keep_ + + + They sent him back to her. The letter came + Saying.... And she could have him. And before + She could be sure there was no hidden ill + Under the formal writing, he was in her sight, + Living. They gave him back to her alive-- + How else? They are not known to send the dead-- + And not disfigured visibly. His face? + His hands? She had to look, to ask, + ‘What is it, dear?’ And she had given all + And still she had all--_they_ had--they the lucky! + Wasn’t she glad now? Everything seemed won, + And all the rest for them permissible ease. + She had to ask, ‘What was it, dear?’ + + ‘Enough, + Yet not enough. A bullet through and through, + High in the breast. Nothing but what good care + And medicine and rest, and you a week, + Can cure me of to go again.’ The same + Grim giving to do over for them both. + She dared no more than ask him with her eyes + How was it with him for a second trial. + And with his eyes he asked her not to ask. + They had given him back to her, but not to keep. + + + + +_A Brook in the City_ + + + The farm house lingers, though averse to square + With the new city street it has to wear + A number in. But what about the brook + That held the house as in an elbow-crook? + I ask as one who knew the brook, its strength + And impulse, having dipped a finger length + And made it leap my knuckle, having tossed + A flower to try its currents where they crossed. + The meadow grass could be cemented down + From growing under pavements of a town; + The apple trees be sent to hearth-stone flame. + Is water wood to serve a brook the same? + How else dispose of an immortal force + No longer needed? Staunch it at its source + With cinder loads dumped down? The brook was thrown + Deep in a sewer dungeon under stone + In fetid darkness still to live and run-- + And all for nothing it had ever done + Except forget to go in fear perhaps. + No one would know except for ancient maps + That such a brook ran water. But I wonder + If from its being kept forever under + The thoughts may not have risen that so keep + This new-built city from both work and sleep. + + + + +_The Kitchen Chimney_ + + + Builder, in building the little house, + In every way you may please yourself; + But please please me in the kitchen chimney: + Don’t build me a chimney upon a shelf. + + However far you must go for bricks, + Whatever they cost a-piece or a pound, + Buy me enough for a full-length chimney, + And build the chimney clear from the ground. + + It’s not that I’m greatly afraid of fire, + But I never heard of a house that throve + (And I know of one that didn’t thrive) + Where the chimney started above the stove. + + And I dread the ominous stain of tar + That there always is on the papered walls, + And the smell of fire drowned in rain + That there always is when the chimney’s false. + + A shelf’s for a clock or vase or picture, + But I don’t see why it should have to bear + A chimney that only would serve to remind me + Of castles I used to build in air. + + + + +_Looking for a Sunset Bird in Winter_ + + + The west was getting out of gold, + The breath of air had died of cold, + When shoeing home across the white, + I thought I saw a bird alight. + + In summer when I passed the place + I had to stop and lift my face; + A bird with an angelic gift + Was singing in it sweet and swift. + + No bird was singing in it now. + A single leaf was on a bough, + And that was all there was to see + In going twice around the tree. + + From my advantage on a hill + I judged that such a crystal chill + Was only adding frost to snow + As gilt to gold that wouldn’t show. + + A brush had left a crooked stroke + Of what was either cloud or smoke + From north to south across the blue; + A piercing little star was through. + + + + +_A Boundless Moment_ + + + He halted in the wind, and--what was that + Far in the maples, pale, but not a ghost? + He stood there bringing March against his thought, + And yet too ready to believe the most. + + ‘Oh, that’s the Paradise-in-bloom,’ I said; + And truly it was fair enough for flowers + Had we but in us to assume in March + Such white luxuriance of May for ours. + + We stood a moment so in a strange world, + Myself as one his own pretense deceives; + And then I said the truth (and we moved on): + A young beech clinging to its last year’s leaves. + + + + +_Evening in a Sugar Orchard_ + + + From where I lingered in a lull in March + Outside the sugar-house one night for choice, + I called the fireman with a careful voice + And bade him leave the pan and stoke the arch: + ‘O fireman, give the fire another stoke, + And send more sparks up chimney with the smoke.’ + I thought a few might tangle, as they did, + Among bare maple boughs, and in the rare + Hill atmosphere not cease to glow, + And so be added to the moon up there. + The moon, though slight, was moon enough to show + On every tree a bucket with a lid, + And on black ground a bear-skin rug of snow. + The sparks made no attempt to be the moon. + They were content to figure in the trees + As Leo, Orion, and the Pleiades. + And that was what the boughs were full of soon. + + + + +_Gathering Leaves_ + + + Spades take up leaves + No better than spoons, + And bags full of leaves + Are light as balloons. + + I make a great noise + Of rustling all day + Like rabbit and deer + Running away. + + But the mountains I raise + Elude my embrace, + Flowing over my arms + And into my face. + + I may load and unload + Again and again + Till I fill the whole shed, + And what have I then? + + Next to nothing for weight; + And since they grew duller + From contact with earth, + Next to nothing for color. + + Next to nothing for use. + But a crop is a crop, + And who’s to say where + The harvest shall stop? + + + + +_The Valley’s Singing Day_ + + + The sound of the closing outside door was all. + You made no sound in the grass with your footfall, + As far as you went from the door, which was not far; + But you had awakened under the morning star + The first song-bird that awakened all the rest. + He could have slept but a moment more at best. + Already determined dawn began to lay + In place across a cloud the slender ray + For prying beneath and forcing the lids of sight, + And loosing the pent-up music of over-night. + But dawn was not to begin their ‘pearly-pearly’ + (By which they mean the rain is pearls so early, + Before it changes to diamonds in the sun), + Neither was song that day to be self-begun. + You had begun it, and if there needed proof-- + I was asleep still under the dripping roof, + My window curtain hung over the sill to wet; + But I should awake to confirm your story yet; + I should be willing to say and help you say + That once you had opened the valley’s singing day. + + + + +_Misgiving_ + + + All crying ‘We will go with you, O Wind!’ + The foliage follow him, leaf and stem; + But a sleep oppresses them as they go, + And they end by bidding him stay with them. + + Since ever they flung abroad in spring + The leaves had promised themselves this flight, + Who now would fain seek sheltering wall, + Or thicket, or hollow place for the night: + + And now they answer his summoning blast + With an ever vaguer and vaguer stir, + Or at utmost a little reluctant whirl + That drops them no further than where they were. + + I only hope that when I am free + As they are free to go in quest + Of the knowledge beyond the bounds of life + It may not seem better to me to rest. + + + + +_A Hillside Thaw_ + + + To think to know the country and not know + The hillside on the day the sun lets go + Ten million silver lizards out of snow! + As often as I’ve seen it done before + I can’t pretend to tell the way it’s done. + It looks as if some magic of the sun + Lifted the rug that bred them on the floor + And the light breaking on them made them run. + But if I thought to stop the wet stampede, + And caught one silver lizard by the tail, + And put my foot on one without avail, + And threw myself wet-elbowed and wet-kneed + In front of twenty others’ wriggling speed,-- + In the confusion of them all aglitter, + And birds that joined in the excited fun + By doubling and redoubling song and twitter, + I have no doubt I’d end by holding none. + + It takes the moon for this. The sun’s a wizard + By all I tell; but so’s the moon a witch. + From the high west she makes a gentle cast + And suddenly, without a jerk or twitch, + She has her spell on every single lizard. + I fancied when I looked at six o’clock + The swarm still ran and scuttled just as fast. + The moon was waiting for her chill effect. + I looked at nine: the swarm was turned to rock + In every lifelike posture of the swarm, + Transfixed on mountain slopes almost erect. + Across each other and side by side they lay. + The spell that so could hold them as they were + Was wrought through trees without a breath of storm + To make a leaf, if there had been one, stir. + It was the moon’s: she held them until day, + One lizard at the end of every ray. + The thought of my attempting such a stay! + + + + +_Plowmen_ + + + A plow, they say, to plow the snow. + They cannot mean to plant it, though-- + Unless in bitterness to mock + At having cultivated rock. + + + + +_On a Tree Fallen Across the Road_ + +(TO HEAR US TALK) + + + The tree the tempest with a crash of wood + Throws down in front of us is not to bar + Our passage to our journey’s end for good, + But just to ask us who we think we are + + Insisting always on our own way so. + She likes to halt us in our runner tracks, + And make us get down in a foot of snow + Debating what to do without an axe. + + And yet she knows obstruction is in vain: + We will not be put off the final goal + We have it hidden in us to attain, + Not though we have to seize earth by the pole + + And, tired of aimless circling in one place, + Steer straight off after something into space. + + + + +_Our Singing Strength_ + + + It snowed in spring on earth so dry and warm + The flakes could find no landing place to form. + Hordes spent themselves to make it wet and cold, + And still they failed of any lasting hold. + They made no white impression on the black. + They disappeared as if earth sent them back. + Not till from separate flakes they changed at night + To almost strips and tapes of ragged white + Did grass and garden ground confess it snowed, + And all go back to winter but the road. + Next day the scene was piled and puffed and dead. + The grass lay flattened under one great tread. + Borne down until the end almost took root, + The rangey bough anticipated fruit + With snowballs cupped in every opening bud. + The road alone maintained itself in mud, + Whatever its secret was of greater heat + From inward fires or brush of passing feet. + + In spring more mortal singers than belong + To any one place cover us with song. + Thrush, bluebird, blackbird, sparrow, and robin throng; + Some to go further north to Hudson’s Bay, + Some that have come too far north back away, + Really a very few to build and stay. + Now was seen how these liked belated snow. + The fields had nowhere left for them to go; + They’d soon exhausted all there was in flying; + The trees they’d had enough of with once trying + And setting off their heavy powder load. + They could find nothing open but the road. + So there they let their lives be narrowed in + By thousands the bad weather made akin. + The road became a channel running flocks + Of glossy birds like ripples over rocks. + I drove them under foot in bits of flight + That kept the ground, almost disputing right + Of way with me from apathy of wing, + A talking twitter all they had to sing. + A few I must have driven to despair + Made quick asides, but having done in air + A whir among white branches great and small + As in some too much carven marble hall + Where one false wing beat would have brought down + Came tamely back in front of me, the Drover, + To suffer the same driven nightmare over. + One such storm in a lifetime couldn’t teach them + That back behind pursuit it couldn’t reach them; + None flew behind me to be left alone. + + Well, something for a snowstorm to have shown + The country’s singing strength thus brought together, + That though repressed and moody with the weather + Was none the less there ready to be freed + And sing the wildflowers up from root and seed. + + + + +_The Lockless Door_ + + + It went many years, + But at last came a knock, + And I thought of the door + With no lock to lock. + + I blew out the light, + I tip-toed the floor, + And raised both hands + In prayer to the door. + + But the knock came again. + My window was wide; + I climbed on the sill + And descended outside. + + Back over the sill + I bade a ‘Come in’ + To whatever the knock + At the door may have been. + + So at a knock + I emptied my cage + To hide in the world + And alter with age. + + + + +_The Need of Being Versed in Country Things_ + + + The house had gone to bring again + To the midnight sky a sunset glow. + Now the chimney was all of the house that stood, + Like a pistil after the petals go. + + The barn opposed across the way, + That would have joined the house in flame + Had it been the will of the wind, was left + To bear forsaken the place’s name. + + No more it opened with all one end + For teams that came by the stony road + To drum on the floor with scurrying hoofs + And brush the mow with the summer load. + + The birds that came to it through the air + At broken windows flew out and in, + Their murmur more like the sigh we sigh + From too much dwelling on what has been. + + Yet for them the lilac renewed its leaf, + And the aged elm, though touched with fire; + And the dry pump flung up an awkward arm; + And the fence post carried a strand of wire. + + For them there was really nothing sad. + But though they rejoiced in the nest they kept, + One had to be versed in country things + Not to believe the phoebes wept. + + + + +WEST-RUNNING BROOK + + + + +_Spring Pools_ + + + These pools that, though in forests, still reflect + The total sky almost without defect, + And like the flowers beside them, chill and shiver, + Will like the flowers beside them soon be gone, + And yet not out by any brook or river, + But up by roots to bring dark foliage on. + + The trees that have it in their pent-up buds + To darken nature and be summer woods-- + Let them think twice before they use their powers + To blot out and drink up and sweep away + These flowery waters and these watery flowers + From snow that melted only yesterday. + + + + +_The Freedom of the Moon_ + + + I’ve tried the new moon tilted in the air + Above a hazy tree-and-farmhouse cluster + As you might try a jewel in your hair. + I’ve tried it fine with little breadth of lustre, + Alone, or in one ornament combining + With one first-water star almost as shining. + + I put it shining anywhere I please. + By walking slowly on some evening later, + I’ve pulled it from a crate of crooked trees, + And brought it over glossy water, greater, + And dropped it in, and seen the image wallow, + The color run, all sorts of wonder follow. + + + + +_The Rose Family_ + + + The rose is a rose, + And was always a rose. + But the theory now goes + That the apple’s a rose, + And the pear is, and so’s + The plum, I suppose. + The dear only knows + What will next prove a rose. + You, of course, are a rose-- + But were always a rose. + + + + +_Fireflies in the Garden_ + + + Here come real stars to fill the upper skies, + And here on earth come emulating flies, + That though they never equal stars in size, + (And they were never really stars at heart) + Achieve at times a very star-like start. + Only, of course, they can’t sustain the part. + + + + +_Atmosphere_ + +INSCRIPTION FOR A GARDEN WALL + + + Winds blow the open grassy places bleak; + But where this old wall burns a sunny cheek, + They eddy over it too toppling weak + To blow the earth or anything self-clear; + Moisture and color and odor thicken here. + The hours of daylight gather atmosphere. + + + + +_Devotion_ + + + The heart can think of no devotion + Greater than being shore to the ocean-- + Holding the curve of one position, + Counting an endless repetition. + + + + +_On Going Unnoticed_ + + + As vain to raise a voice as a sigh + In the tumult of free leaves on high. + What are you in the shadow of trees + Engaged up there with the light and breeze? + + Less than the coral-root you know + That is content with the daylight low, + And has no leaves at all of its own; + Whose spotted flowers hang meanly down. + + You grasp the bark by a rugged pleat, + And look up small from the forest’s feet. + The only leaf it drops goes wide, + Your name not written on either side. + + You linger your little hour and are gone, + And still the woods sweep leafily on, + Not even missing the coral-root flower + You took as a trophy of the hour. + + + + +_The Cocoon_ + + + As far as I can see this autumn haze + That spreading in the evening air both ways, + Makes the new moon look anything but new, + And pours the elm-tree meadow full of blue, + Is all the smoke from one poor house alone + With but one chimney it can call its own; + So close it will not light an early light, + Keeping its life so close and out of sight + No one for hours has set a foot outdoors + So much as to take care of evening chores. + The inmates may be lonely women-folk. + I want to tell them that with all this smoke + They prudently are spinning their cocoon + And anchoring it to an earth and moon + From which no winter gale can hope to blow it,-- + Spinning their own cocoon did they but know it. + + + + +_A Passing Glimpse_ + + To Ridgley Torrence + On Last Looking Into His ‘Hesperides’ + + + I often see flowers from a passing car + That are gone before I can tell what they are. + + I want to get out of the train and go back + To see what they were beside the track. + + I name all the flowers I am sure they weren’t: + Not fireweed loving where woods have burnt-- + + Not blue bells gracing a tunnel mouth-- + Not lupine living on sand and drouth. + + Was something brushed across my mind + That no one on earth will ever find? + + Heaven gives its glimpses only to those + Not in position to look too close. + + + + +_A Peck of Gold_ + + + Dust always blowing about the town, + Except when sea-fog laid it down, + And I was one of the children told + Some of the blowing dust was gold. + + All the dust the wind blew high + Appeared like gold in the sunset sky, + But I was one of the children told + Some of the dust was really gold. + + Such was life in the Golden Gate: + Gold dusted all we drank and ate, + And I was one of the children told, + ‘We all must eat our peck of gold.’ + + + + +_Acceptance_ + + + When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud + And goes down burning into the gulf below, + No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud + At what has happened. Birds, at least, must know + It is the change to darkness in the sky. + Murmuring something quiet in her breast, + One bird begins to close a faded eye; + Or overtaken too far from his nest, + Hurrying low above the grove, some waif + Swoops just in time to his remembered tree. + At most he thinks or twitters softly, ‘Safe! + Now let the night be dark for all of me. + Let the night be too dark for me to see + Into the future. Let what will be, be.’ + + + + +_Once by the Pacific_ + + + The shattered water made a misty din. + Great waves looked over others coming in, + And thought of doing something to the shore + That water never did to land before. + The clouds were low and hairy in the skies, + Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes. + You could not tell, and yet it looked as if + The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff, + The cliff in being backed by continent; + It looked as if a night of dark intent + Was coming, and not only a night, an age. + Someone had better be prepared for rage. + There would be more than ocean-water broken + Before God’s last _Put out the Light_ was spoken. + + + + +_Lodged_ + + + The rain to the wind said + ‘You push and I’ll pelt.’ + They so smote the garden bed + That the flowers actually knelt, + And lay lodged--though not dead. + I know how the flowers felt. + + + + +_A Minor Bird_ + + + I have wished a bird would fly away, + And not sing by my house all day; + + Have clapped my hands at him from the door + When it seemed as if I could bear no more. + + The fault must partly have been in me. + The bird was not to blame for his key. + + And of course there must be something wrong + In wanting to silence any song. + + + + +_Bereft_ + + + Where had I heard this wind before + Change like this to a deeper roar? + What would it take my standing there for, + Holding open a restive door, + Looking down hill to a frothy shore? + Summer was past and day was past. + Sombre clouds in the west were massed. + Out in the porch’s sagging floor, + Leaves got up in a coil and hissed, + Blindly struck at my knee and missed. + Something sinister in the tone + Told me my secret must be known: + Word I was in the house alone + Somehow must have gotten abroad, + Word I was in my life alone, + Word I had no one left but God. + + + + +_Tree at My Window_ + + + Tree at my window, window tree, + My sash is lowered when night comes on; + But let there never be curtain drawn + Between you and me. + + Vague dream-head lifted out of the ground, + And thing next most diffuse to cloud, + Not all your light tongues talking aloud + Could be profound. + + But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed, + And if you have seen me when I slept, + You have seen me when I was taken and swept + And all but lost. + + That day she put our heads together, + Fate had her imagination about her, + Your head so much concerned with outer, + Mine with inner, weather. + + + + +_The Peaceful Shepherd_ + + + If heaven were to do again, + And on the pasture bars, + I leaned to line the figures in + Between the dotted stars, + + I should be tempted to forget, + I fear, the Crown of Rule, + The Scales of Trade, the Cross of Faith, + As hardly worth renewal. + + For these have governed in our lives, + And see how men have warred. + The Cross, the Crown, the Scales may all + As well have been the Sword. + + + + +_The Thatch_ + + + Out alone in the winter rain, + Intent on giving and taking pain. + But never was I far out of sight + Of a certain upper-window light. + The light was what it was all about: + I would not go in till the light went out; + It would not go out till I came in. + Well, we should see which one would win, + We should see which one would be first to yield. + The world was a black invisible field. + The rain by rights was snow for cold. + The wind was another layer of mould. + But the strangest thing: in the thick old thatch, + Where summer birds had been given hatch, + Had fed in chorus, and lived to fledge, + Some still were living in hermitage. + And as I passed along the eaves, + So low I brushed the straw with my sleeves, + I flushed birds out of hole after hole, + Into the darkness. It grieved my soul, + It started a grief within a grief, + To think their case was beyond relief-- + They could not go flying about in search + Of their nest again, nor find a perch. + They must brood where they fell in mulch and mire, + Trusting feathers and inward fire + Till daylight made it safe for a flyer. + My greater grief was by so much reduced + As I thought of them without nest or roost. + That was how that grief started to melt. + They tell me the cottage where we dwelt, + Its wind-torn thatch goes now unmended; + Its life of hundreds of years has ended + By letting the rain I knew outdoors + In on to the upper chamber floors. + + + + +_A Winter Eden_ + + + A winter garden in an alder swamp, + Where conies now come out to sun and romp, + As near a paradise as it can be + And not melt snow or start a dormant tree. + + It lifts existence on a plane of snow + One level higher than the earth below, + One level nearer heaven overhead, + And last year’s berries shining scarlet red. + + It lifts a gaunt luxuriating beast + Where he can stretch and hold his highest feast + On some wild apple tree’s young tender bark, + What well may prove the year’s high girdle mark. + + So near to paradise all pairing ends: + Here loveless birds now flock as winter friends, + Content with bud-inspecting. They presume + To say which buds are leaf and which are bloom. + + A feather-hammer gives a double knock. + This Eden day is done at two o’clock. + An hour of winter day might seem too short + To make it worth life’s while to wake and sport. + + + + +_The Flood_ + + + Blood has been harder to dam back than water. + Just when we think we have it impounded safe + Behind new barrier walls (and let it chafe!), + It breaks away in some new kind of slaughter. + We choose to say it is let loose by the devil; + But power of blood itself releases blood. + It goes by might of being such a flood + Held high at so unnatural a level. + It will have outlet, brave and not so brave. + Weapons of war and implements of peace + Are but the points at which it finds release. + And now it is once more the tidal wave + That when it has swept by leaves summits stained. + Oh, blood will out. It cannot be contained. + + + + +_Acquainted With the Night_ + + + I have been one acquainted with the night. + I have walked out in rain--and back in rain. + I have outwalked the furthest city light. + + I have looked down the saddest city lane. + I have passed by the watchman on his beat + And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. + + I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet + When far away an interrupted cry + Came over houses from another street, + + But not to call me back or say good-bye; + And further still at an unearthly height, + One luminary clock against the sky + + Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. + I have been one acquainted with the night. + + + + +_The Lovely Shall Be Choosers_ + + + The Voice said, ‘Hurl her down!’ + + The Voices, ‘How far down?’ + + ‘Seven levels of the world.’ + + ‘How much time have we?’ + + ‘Take twenty years. + She _would_ refuse love safe with wealth and honor! + The lovely shall be choosers, shall they? + Then let them choose!’ + + ‘Then we shall let her choose?’ + + ‘Yes, let her choose. + Take up the task beyond her choosing.’ + + Invisible hands crowded on her shoulder + In readiness to weigh upon her. + But she stood straight still, + In broad round ear-rings, gold and jet with pearls + And broad round suchlike brooch, + Her cheeks high colored, + Proud and the pride of friends. + + The Voice asked, ‘You can let her choose?’ + + ‘Yes, we can let her and still triumph.’ + + ‘Do it by joys, and leave her always blameless. + Be her first joy her wedding, + That though a wedding, + Is yet--well something they know, he and she. + And after that her next joy + That though she grieves, her grief is secret: + Those friends know nothing of her grief to make it shameful. + Her third joy that though now they cannot help but know, + They move in pleasure too far off + To think much or much care. + Give her a child at either knee for fourth joy + To tell once and once only, for them never to forget, + How once she walked in brightness, + And make them see it in the winter firelight. + But give her friends for then she dare not tell + For their foregone incredulousness. + And be her next joy this: + Her never having deigned to tell them. + Make her among the humblest even + Seem to them less than they are. + Hopeless of being known for what she has been, + Failing of being loved for what she is, + Give her the comfort for her sixth of knowing + She fails from strangeness to a way of life + She came to from too high too late to learn. + Then send some _one_ with eyes to see + And wonder at her where she is, + And words to wonder in her hearing how she came there, + But without time to linger for her story. + Be her last joy her heart’s going out to this one + So that she almost speaks. + You know them--seven in all.’ + + ‘Trust us,’ the Voices said. + + + + +_West-running Brook_ + + + ‘Fred, where is north?’ + + ‘North? North is there, my love. + The brook runs west.’ + + ‘West-running Brook then call it.’ + (West-running Brook men call it to this day.) + ‘What does it think it’s doing running west + When all the other country brooks flow east + To reach the ocean? It must be the brook + Can trust itself to go by contraries + The way I can with you--and you with me-- + Because we’re--we’re--I don’t know what we are. + What are we?’ + + ‘Young or new?’ + + ‘We must be something. + We’ve said we two. Let’s change that to we three. + As you and I are married to each other, + We’ll both be married to the brook. We’ll build + Our bridge across it, and the bridge shall be + Our arm thrown over it asleep beside it. + Look, look, it’s waving to us with a wave + To let us know it hears me.’ + + ‘Why, my dear, + That wave’s been standing off this jut of shore--’ + (The black stream, catching on a sunken rock, + Flung backward on itself in one white wave, + And the white water rode the black forever, + Not gaining but not losing, like a bird + White feathers from the struggle of whose breast + Flecked the dark stream and flecked the darker pool + Below the point, and were at last driven wrinkled + In a white scarf against the far shore alders.) + ‘That wave’s been standing off this jut of shore + Ever since rivers, I was going to say, + Were made in heaven. It wasn’t waved to us.’ + + ‘It wasn’t, yet it was. If not to you + It was to me--in an annunciation.’ + + ‘Oh, if you take it off to lady-land, + As’t were the country of the Amazons + We men must see you to the confines of + And leave you there, ourselves forbid to enter,-- + It is your brook! I have no more to say.’ + + ‘Yes, you have, too. Go on. You thought of something.’ + + ‘Speaking of contraries, see how the brook + In that white wave runs counter to itself. + It is from that in water we were from + Long, long before we were from any creature. + Here we, in our impatience of the steps, + Get back to the beginning of beginnings, + The stream of everything that runs away. + Some say existence like a Pirouot + And Pirouette, forever in one place, + Stands still and dances, but it runs away, + It seriously, sadly, runs away + To fill the abyss’ void with emptiness. + It flows beside us in this water brook, + But it flows over us. It flows between us + To separate us for a panic moment. + It flows between us, over us, and _with_ us. + And it is time, strength, tone, light, life and love-- + And even substance lapsing unsubstantial; + The universal cataract of death + That spends to nothingness--and unresisted, + Save by some strange resistance in itself, + Not just a swerving, but a throwing back, + As if regret were in it and were sacred. + It has this throwing backward on itself + So that the fall of most of it is always + Raising a little, sending up a little. + Our life runs down in sending up the clock. + The brook runs down in sending up our life. + The sun runs down in sending up the brook. + And there is something sending up the sun. + It is this backward motion toward the source, + Against the stream, that most we see ourselves in, + The tribute of the current to the source. + It is from this in nature we are from. + It is most us.’ + + ‘Today will be the day + You said so.’ + + ‘No, today will be the day + You said the brook was called West-running Brook.’ + + ‘Today will be the day of what we both said.’ + + + + +_Sand Dunes_ + + + Sea waves are green and wet, + But up from where they die, + Rise others vaster yet, + And those are brown and dry. + + They are the sea made land + To come at the fisher town, + And bury in solid sand + The men she could not drown. + + She may know cove and cape, + But she does not know mankind + If by any change of shape, + She hopes to cut off mind. + + Men left her a ship to sink: + They can leave her a hut as well; + And be but more free to think + For the one more cast off shell. + + + + +_Canis Major_ + + + The great Overdog, + That heavenly beast + With a star in one eye, + Gives a leap in the east. + + He dances upright + All the way to the west + And never once drops + On his forefeet to rest. + + I’m a poor underdog, + But tonight I will bark + With the great Overdog + That romps through the dark. + + + + +_A Soldier_ + + + He is that fallen lance that lies as hurled, + That lies unlifted now, come dew, come rust, + But still lies pointed as it plowed the dust. + If we who sight along it round the world, + See nothing worthy to have been its mark, + It is because like men we look too near, + Forgetting that as fitted to the sphere, + Our missiles always make too short an arc. + They fall, they rip the grass, they intersect + The curve of earth, and striking, break their own; + They make us cringe for metal-point on stone. + But this we know, the obstacle that checked + And tripped the body, shot the spirit on + Further than target ever showed or shone. + + + + +_Immigrants_ + + + No ship of all that under sail or steam + Have gathered people to us more and more + But Pilgrim-manned the Mayflower in a dream + Has been her anxious convoy in to shore. + + + + +_Hannibal_ + + + Was there ever a cause too lost, + Ever a cause that was lost too long, + Or that showed with the lapse of time too vain + For the generous tears of youth and song? + + + + +_The Flower Boat_ + + + The fisherman’s swapping a yarn for a yarn + Under the hand of the village barber, + And here in the angle of house and barn + His deep-sea dory has found a harbor. + + At anchor she rides the sunny sod + As full to the gunnel of flowers growing + As ever she turned her home with cod + From George’s bank when winds were blowing. + + And I judge from that Elysian freight + That all they ask is rougher weather, + And dory and master will sail by fate + To seek for the Happy Isles together. + + + + +_The Times Table_ + + + More than half way up the pass + Was a spring with a broken drinking glass, + And whether the farmer drank or not + His mare was sure to observe the spot + By cramping the wheel on a water-bar, + Turning her forehead with a star, + And straining her ribs for a monster sigh; + To which the farmer would make reply, + ‘A sigh for every so many breath, + And for every so many sigh a death. + That’s what I always tell my wife + Is the multiplication table of life.’ + The saying may be ever so true; + But it’s just the kind of a thing that you, + Nor I, nor nobody else may say, + Unless our purpose is doing harm, + And then I know of no better way + To close a road, abandon a farm, + Reduce the births of the human race, + And bring back nature in people’s place. + + + + +_The Investment_ + + + Over back where they speak of life as staying + (‘You couldn’t call it living, for it ain’t’), + There was an old, old house renewed with paint, + And in it a piano loudly playing. + + Out in the ploughed ground in the cold a digger, + Among unearthed potatoes standing still, + Was counting winter dinners, one a hill, + With half an ear to the piano’s vigor. + + All that piano and new paint back there, + Was it some money suddenly come into? + Or some extravagance young love had been to? + Or old love on an impulse not to care-- + + Not to sink under being man and wife, + But get some color and music out of life? + + + + +_The Last Mowing_ + + + There’s a place called Far-away Meadow + We never shall mow in again, + Or such is the talk at the farmhouse: + The meadow is finished with men. + Then now is the chance for the flowers + That can’t stand mowers and plowers. + It must be now; though, in season + Before the not mowing brings trees on, + Before trees, seeing the opening, + March into a shadowy claim. + The trees are all I’m afraid of, + That flowers can’t bloom in the shade of; + It’s no more men I’m afraid of; + The meadow is done with the tame. + The place for the moment is ours + For you, oh tumultuous flowers, + To go to waste and go wild in, + All shapes and colors of flowers, + I needn’t call you by name. + + + + +_The Birthplace_ + + + Here further up the mountain slope + Than there was ever any hope, + My father built, enclosed a spring, + Strung chains of wall round everything, + Subdued the growth of earth to grass, + And brought our various lives to pass. + A dozen girls and boys we were. + The mountain seemed to like the stir, + And made of us a little while-- + With always something in her smile. + Today she wouldn’t know our name. + (No girl’s, of course, has stayed the same.) + The mountain pushed us off her knees. + And now her lap is full of trees. + + + + +_The Door in the Dark_ + + + In going from room to room in the dark, + I reached out blindly to save my face, + But neglected, however lightly, to lace + My fingers and close my arms in an arc. + A slim door got in past my guard, + And hit me a blow in the head so hard + I had my native simile jarred. + So people and things don’t pair any more + With what they used to pair with before. + + + + +_Dust in the Eyes_ + + + If, as they say, some dust thrown in my eyes + Will keep my talk from getting overwise, + I’m not the one for putting off the proof. + Let it be overwhelming, off a roof + And round a corner, blizzard snow for dust, + And blind me to a standstill if it must. + + + + +_Sitting by a Bush in Broad Sunlight_ + + + When I spread out my hand here today, + I catch no more than a ray + To feel of between thumb and fingers; + No lasting effect of it lingers. + + There was one time and only the one + When dust really took in the sun; + And from that one intake of fire + All creatures still warmly suspire. + + And if men have watched a long time + And never seen sun-smitten slime + Again come to life and crawl off, + We must not be too ready to scoff. + + God once declared he was true + And then took the veil and withdrew, + And remember how final a hush + Then descended of old on the bush. + + God once spoke to people by name. + The sun once imparted its flame. + One impulse persists as our breath; + The other persists as our faith. + + + + +_The Armful_ + + + For every parcel I stoop down to seize, + I lose some other off my arms and knees, + And the whole pile is slipping, bottles, buns, + Extremes too hard to comprehend at once, + Yet nothing I should care to leave behind. + With all I have to hold with, hand and mind + And heart, if need be, I will do my best + To keep their building balanced at my breast. + I crouch down to prevent them as they fall; + Then sit down in the middle of them all. + I had to drop the armful in the road + And try to stack them in a better load. + + + + +_What Fifty Said_ + + + When I was young my teachers were the old. + I gave up fire for form till I was cold. + I suffered like a metal being cast. + I went to school to age to learn the past. + + Now I am old my teachers are the young. + What can’t be moulded must be cracked and sprung. + I strain at lessons fit to start a suture. + I go to school to youth to learn the future. + + + + +_Riders_ + + + The surest thing there is is we are riders, + And though none too successful at it, guiders, + Through everything presented, land and tide + And now the very air, of what we ride. + + What is this talked-of mystery of birth + But being mounted bareback on the earth? + We can just see the infant up astride, + His small fist buried in the bushy hide. + + There is our wildest mount--a headless horse. + But though it runs unbridled off its course, + And all our blandishments would seem defied, + We have ideas yet that we haven’t tried. + + + + +_On Looking Up By Chance at the Constellations_ + + + You’ll wait a long, long time for anything much + To happen in heaven beyond the floats of cloud + And the Northern Lights that run like tingling nerves. + The sun and moon get crossed, but they never touch, + Nor strike out fire from each other, nor crash out loud. + The planets seem to interfere in their curves, + But nothing ever happens, no harm is done. + We may as well go patiently on with our life, + And look elsewhere than to stars and moon and sun + For the shocks and changes we need to keep us sane. + It is true the longest drouth will end in rain, + The longest peace in China will end in strife. + Still it wouldn’t reward the watcher to stay awake + In hopes of seeing the calm of heaven break + On his particular time and personal sight. + That calm seems certainly safe to last tonight. + + + + +_The Bear_ + + + The bear puts both arms around the tree above her + And draws it down as if it were a lover + And its choke cherries lips to kiss good-bye, + Then lets it snap back upright in the sky. + Her next step rocks a boulder on the wall + (She’s making her cross-country in the fall). + Her great weight creaks the barbed-wire in its staples + As she flings over and off down through the maples, + Leaving on one wire tooth a lock of hair. + Such is the uncaged progress of the bear. + The world has room to make a bear feel free; + The universe seems cramped to you and me. + Man acts more like the poor bear in a cage + That all day fights a nervous inward rage, + His mood rejecting all his mind suggests. + He paces back and forth and never rests + The toe-nail click and shuffle of his feet, + The telescope at one end of his beat, + And at the other end the microscope, + Two instruments of nearly equal hope, + And in conjunction giving quite a spread. + Or if he rests from scientific tread, + ’Tis only to sit back and sway his head + Through ninety odd degrees of arc, it seems, + Between two metaphysical extremes. + He sits back on his fundamental butt + With lifted snout and eyes (if any) shut, + (He almost looks religious but he’s not), + And back and forth he sways from cheek to cheek, + At one extreme agreeing with one Greek, + At the other agreeing with another Greek + Which may be thought, but only so to speak. + A baggy figure, equally pathetic + When sedentary and when peripatetic. + + + + +_The Egg and the Machine_ + + + He gave the solid rail a hateful kick. + From far away there came an answering tick + And then another tick. He knew the code: + His hate had roused an engine up the road. + He wished when he had had the track alone + He had attacked it with a club or stone + And bent some rail wide open like a switch + So as to wreck the engine in the ditch. + Too late though, now, he had himself to thank. + Its click was rising to a nearer clank. + Here it came breasting like a horse in skirts. + (He stood well back for fear of scalding squirts.) + Then for a moment all there was was size + Confusion and a roar that drowned the cries + He raised against the gods in the machine. + Then once again the sandbank lay serene. + The traveler’s eye picked up a turtle trail, + Between the dotted feet a streak of tail, + And followed it to where he made out vague + But certain signs of buried turtle’s egg; + And probing with one finger not too rough, + He found suspicious sand, and sure enough, + The pocket of a little turtle mine. + If there was one egg in it there were nine, + Torpedo-like, with shell of gritty leather + All packed in sand to wait the trump together. + ‘You’d better not disturb me any more,’ + He told the distance, ‘I am armed for war. + The next machine that has the power to pass + Will get this plasm in its goggle glass.’ + + + + +Transcriber’s Note + + + ❧ Italics represented by surrounding _underscores_. + + ❧ Small caps converted to ALL CAPS. + + ❧ “The Pasture” added to the Table of Contents. + + ❧ All spelling and hyphenation kept as in the original, except for + the following: + + p. 328: “Oh, if you take if” changed to “Oh, if you take it” + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78327 *** |