A Little Window | Page 3

day, too,
"Joyously, joyously!"
_Buffalo Harbor_

Some say that it is ugly and hurry on through,
But I love these
impressive symbols
Of man's ingenuity.
Here are the great grain
elevators, looming
In tones and shades of grey, veiled
In the clouds
of black smoke from the
Tugs at their feet;
Puffing engines shifting
strings of cars,
And huge ships nosed in against each other
Or
riding at anchor, and canal boats
In straight lines at the docks.

Farther on, across a slip, there are
Mountains of ore in reds and
brown,
And pile upon pile of gravel and slag,
And sand in soft
saffron hues,
Heaped up for the steel mills to devour;
Those
gigantic mills whose tall stacks
Belch varicolored gases, against

The deep blue of the inner harbor,
Where the waves pound in
Over
the sea wall.
All this cupped by the towering
City skyscrapers, and
outlined against
The peaceful Eden hills,
Miles to the south.
And
when I wait for the big bridge to lift
For a freighter with its important
tugs,
I pull out of line, off to the side,
And let the other cars go by,

And look, and look.
I never seem to get enough.
_From a Train Window_
Once, before dawn,
In the Mohawk valley,
Dots of light flashed

And floated off
Into the blackness,
Like sparks of flame
Blasted
from the engine.
Then more and more,
Mile after mile,
Almost
never ending--
Millions of fire-flies,
Like tiny torches,
Dancing
over swamp lands
In the night air.
_Scotland_
(_The Highlands_)
Mountains,
Veiled in shifting vapors,
Mountains,
Bleak,
foreboding,
Mountains,
Stark and overpowering.
Torrents,

Tumbling, crashing,
Dragging boulders
In their rushing,
Lakes,

Forlorn and lonesome
Heather
In magenta patches,
Sheep, and
cattle
Black and somber,
Winding roads
Through massive passes.


Rain,
Sun,
Flowers,
Mist,
Rain,--
Loved Scotland!
_Friends_
(_At Lake Windermere, England_)
Across the lake
Lying calm and black
Under the night,
Floats the
wail
Of the pipes:
And beyond, loom
Langdale Pikes, dim,

Shadowy sentinels.
Over all, the stars,
Like friends, faithful
And
changeless.
_A Poem of Color_
Stretched on the ground beneath the Hawthorn,
The perfume of its
blossoms mingled with falling petals, floats
down to me.
Winged things alight there on the blanket of fragrance
above,--a
bunting, blue as the sky, a warbler, all gold, an Admiral, wings banded
with crimson,
Make a poem of color of the Hawthorn tree.
_Dream_
(_Stratford-on-Avon_)
One warm June evening
I sat in the churchyard
Of old Trinity. I sat
there for hours
On an ancient stone, forgetting time.
The Avon, as
silent as the centuries it had known,
Glided past, carrying me on with
its memories.
From the lush meadow across the river came the
bleating of lambs, And from the limes floated the song of blackbirds.

All about the scent of roses hung heavy.
Then, over the roof of
Trinity, the moon arose.
Shakespeare saw the Avon, thus, and loved
it,--
Winding on in the moonlight.
_Escape_

How simple life can be!
A cabin,
Mountains, afar and near,
A
brook,
Deer, blowing at night.
Perchance,
Rain on the roof,

Then,
The loved books,
A fire on the hearth,
And endless time

To think.
How simple life is!
_Question_
(_Locheven_)
Would you choose
The formal garden
With lilac hedges
And
vistas of velvet lawn
And marble fountain
Shining pool and

Marble bench o'er-topped
By drooping willow;
Massed color in
trim beds,
And stately garden house
Festooned with wisteria
And
guarded by strutting peacock?
Or,
The wood's garden,
The wild garden,
Tumbling over itself
With
pale Jacks, and violets--
Blue and gold, and
Baby ferns, tucked

Within sheltering gnarled roots!
And mossy mounds, starred
With
Trillium and Crane's bill;
And patches of lavender sunlight,
(No, it's
wild Phlox,
In the flickering light)--
And fire-flies and flapping
owls,
At twilight, and furry rabbits,
Bobbing ahead up the path.
Which would you choose?
_When You Were a Little Girl_
When you were a little girl
And you went driving with Grandfather,

If it rained, didn't he braid up the horse's tail
Binding it round with
a bright silver band,
And fasten on the side curtains of the carriage

And pull the rubber "boot" over the dashboard?
And do you
remember how the horse's feet
Went "Plop, plop," in and out of the
mud,
And you felt the mist blow in on your face
When you
managed to peer out over the curtain?
And didn't you snuggle up

close to Grandfather
And hug the Fairy Tale book
Which he was
going to listen to
When the rain stopped and you lunched
Beside
the road?
Didn't your Grandfather always drive over
To the cheese factory, and
bring out
The fresh cheese curd to you?
Can't you remember the
taste, even now?
And sometimes, when it stormed hard, and
thundered
And lightened, and the crashing made the horse
Want to
run, wouldn't your Grandfather always say:
"Steady there, now, boy!
Steady, boy!" so gently,
That neither you nor the horse were afraid
after that
Because Grandfather said everything was all right,
And he
knew. And wasn't your Grandmother
Waiting in the doorway,
watching a bit anxiously,
Until you turned into the yard?
Mine was.
_Flight_
So still lay the city,
So very quietly it slept,
That from high in the
west
I heard the honking of geese
Winging southward.

Yearningly I listened
As they swept over,
Yearningly I cried--
O
wild things, that I
Could fly as do you!
Then out of the silent
darkness,
Like a flying star,
Flashed a plane
With its skyborne
humans.
And all of a sudden
I remembered that I, too,
Could take
to wings.
_Petit Trianon_
(_Versailles, France_)
When the long drawn notes of a bird's song
Echoes through the trees,

It brings to remembrance the songs
Of the blackbirds at Petit
Trianon:
Chiming, reverberating, floating down
From the tops