A Boys Will | Page 5

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 gray?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 lowest 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 cag��d 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 (audio)
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 ices 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.
A 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