A Little Window | Page 2

some one did.
And I could talk with the children.
I long to do
this,
But it always seems
That there is a hurry
To get to the next

place.
_Fearless Winging_
Into Niagara's abyss of blackness,
Into its cavernous chaos,
I saw
birds wing.
Sweeping down
Through the mist
Of its mighty
waters,
Undaunted by the roar,
Unmindful of the churning,
Of the
terror of its power,
On sure pinions
And happy in flight
They
dipped and soared and
Mounted, upward and upward.
Into the light

And the rainbow
Above them.
_Whimsey_
In spring my hemlock
Dances gayly in flounces
Of jade green lace.
In summer moonlight
When a soft wind stirs
She dances with a
delicate sapling.
They sway and bend in the wind,
And bow to the
trees encircling.
I hear the laughter of their leaves.
In autumn she dances
With beech leaves in her hair,
But in winter I have found her still,
Crouching under a blanket of
snow.
_Remembering_
(_Locheven_)
There is a spot in the woods
That is "forever England" to me.
A
clump of beech trees
Steeped in silence,
Whose shade and solitude

Shuts me in with my dreams.
The sunshine slants through
Their
limpid leaves
And turns them to translucent jade,
Just as it does in
an English spring.
Violets are there, and I pluck them,

Remembering the bluebells
In the beech wood
At Sevenoaks.
_Aloofness_

Down among the docks and elevators and railroad tracks
On the way
out of the city,
I pass a tiny cottage so rickety
That its neighbors
crowd close
To hold it up. But there it is,
Its one window shining
clean, and glowing
With a plant in a tin can and pure white curtains.

Hanging over the fence and filling the whole place
With its beauty
and almost hiding the cottage
Is a peach tree in full bloom.
In the
doorway I glimpse a girl
In a purple dress.
But what matters the
smoke and the noise and the fog
To the peach tree?
_Listening_
(_Eden, N. Y._)
Atop Aries hill am I,
The lone flyer, throbbing
Against the sunset

Is higher.
He sees more than I,
But he cannot hear
What I hear.
I hear the wood-thrush
And the veery,
Answer each other.
I hear
the voices
Of happy children
And the baying of hounds
Float up
from the valley;
The chirp of the cricket
At my feet, and, then,

The silence of nightfall.
He sees more than I,
But he cannot hear
What I hear.
_September's End_
In the ash tree
There is a soft rustling,
Lingering, like
A silken
whisper,
Quite different
Than sound the other trees;
As if the
bronzy leaves
Had much to say
Before they part,
And were loath

To bid farewell.
_Content_
(_Westfield, N. Y._)
When I linger in my garden

And see black swallowtails hovering

Over white phlox and orange zinnias,
And morning glories, in a

heavenly blue mass
Surge upward on their trellis;
When I watch the
scintillating humming-bird
Sip from the trumpet blossoms across my
doorway,
I feel no urge of travel to behold
More of earth's beauty.

Here in my little garden I have it all--
And here I am content.
_Rhythm_
Firelight, and strains of a symphony
Wafting in.
Outside, bare trees

Against leaden skies
Weave their own music
That throbs with the
rhythm
Of the orchestra.
The wind moans, and
Strong, black
branches
Sway slowly,
Mark the beat,
Then stop.
The wind
hums,
Delicate, lacelike tops
Quiver and ripple
With the quick
response
Of the violins.
With the shriek of the wind
They writhe
and toss,
Measuring the crescendo
Of the brasses.
_Contrast_
In an old world palace,
Room after room
Is filled with treasures--

Old masters, jewels, glass.
Yet all I remember
Is the stark whiteness
of a gardenia
Blowing against a wall,
And the fairy music of a
fountain
In the patio.
_Surety_
I needed the dawn, but
My eyes beheld only clouds
And a valley
filled with mists
And a mountain shutting out the east.
I needed the
dawn, so
I could but wait.
Surely,

Slowly
Through the clouds

The light came,
Like a presence
Dispelling mist and cloud:
Even
the mountain
Could not hide it.
My eyes beheld all clear,
And in
the roseate glow,
Like a diamond,
Hung the morning star.
_Guests_
There was emptiness
When the birds left in the fall.
But to fill it
came late butterflies,
Dawdling flocks of brilliant things
In clouds

of scintillating beauty,
Covering every bush and flower.
As silently
as they came did they disappear
And in their place came the music

Of the katydid and the cricket.
Day and night the cheerful songs
Of
these tiny insects were our company.
An early blizzard
Buried every green blade and bent to earth
Great
trees and slender saplings
Under a thick weight of snow.
To our
door came the thrushes
That we thought were gone,--
Shy thrushes,
that had turned their backs
Upon us in summer and slipped
Into the
depth of the woods,--
And whitethroats and tree sparrows,
Unafraid,
waiting for food.
Even now the stillness is alive
With the memory
of these friendly folk.
_Storm_
When the storm rushes upon the deep woods,
It lets down curtains of
mist
And sheets of rain, that drip
Crystal beads among the trees.

Way above, the branches lash and moan
And weave. Below, it is still,

Still as the undersea.
Soft fern and feathery bracken
Loom
through the mist
Like branching coral,
And drifting leaves float
down
Like snowy fishes,
Lazily moving.
_A Reminder_
Down beneath the office windows
In a chestnut clump,
A robin
sings all day long,
"Joyously, joyously!"
Above the whir of traffic,
The bands and the sirens,
Floats his song
all day,
"Joyously, joyously!"
The lilting song brings to me,
The peace of field and merry brook,

And I myself, sing all