Collected Poems 1901-1918 in Two Volumes - Volume I. | Page 9

now?A dell of snow,?Frost on the bough;?None there but I:?Snow, snow, and a wintry sky.
None there but I,?And footprints one by one,?Zigzaggedly,?Where I had run;?Where shrill and powdery?A robin sat in the tree.
And he whistled sweet;?And I in the crusted snow?With snow-clubbed feet?Jigged to and fro,?Till, from the day,?The rose-light ebbed away.
And the robin flew?Into the air, the air,?The white mist through;?And small and rare?The night-frost fell?In the calm and misty dell.
And the dusk gathered low,?And the silver moon and stars?On the frozen snow?Drew taper bars,?Kindled winking fires?In the hooded briers.
And the sprawling Bear?Growled deep in the sky;?And Orion's hair?Streamed sparkling by:?But the North sighed low,?"Snow, snow, more snow!"

ENVOI

TO MY MOTHER
Thine is my all, how little when 'tis told
Beside thy gold!?Thine the first peace, and mine the livelong strife;?Thine the clear dawn, and mine the night of life;
Thine the unstained belief,?Darkened in grief.
Scarce even a flower but thine its beauty and name,
Dimmed, yet the same;?Never in twilight comes the moon to me,?Stealing thro' those far woods, but tells of thee,
Falls, dear, on my wild heart,?And takes thy part.
Thou art the child, and I--how steeped in age!
A blotted page?From that clear, little book life's taken away:?How could I read it, dear, so dark the day?
Be it all memory?'Twixt thee and me!

THE LISTENERS: 1914

THE THREE CHERRY TREES
There were three cherry trees once,?Grew in a garden all shady;?And there for delight of so gladsome a sight,?Walked a most beautiful lady,?Dreamed a most beautiful lady.
Birds in those branches did sing,?Blackbird and throstle and linnet,?But she walking there was by far the most fair--?Lovelier than all else within it,?Blackbird and throstle and linnet.
But blossoms to berries do come,?All hanging on stalks light and slender,?And one long summer's day charmed that lady away,?With vows sweet and merry and tender;?A lover with voice low and tender.
Moss and lichen the green branches deck;?Weeds nod in its paths green and shady:?Yet a light footstep seems there to wander in dreams,?The ghost of that beautiful lady,?That happy and beautiful lady.
OLD SUSAN
When Susan's work was done, she would sit,?With one fat guttering candle lit,?And window opened wide to win?The sweet night air to enter in.?There, with a thumb to keep her place,?She would read, with stern and wrinkled face,?Her mild eyes gliding very slow?Across the letters to and fro,?While wagged the guttering candle flame?In the wind that through the window came.?And sometimes in the silence she?Would mumble a sentence audibly,?Or shake her head as if to say,?"You silly souls, to act this way!"?And never a sound from night I would hear,?Unless some far-off cock crowed clear;?Or her old shuffling thumb should turn?Another page; and rapt and stern,?Through her great glasses bent on me,?She would glance into reality;?And shake her round old silvery head,?With--"You!--I thought you was in bed!"--?Only to tilt her book again,?And rooted in Romance remain.
OLD BEN
Sad is old Ben Tristlewaite,?Now his day is done,?And all his children?Far away are gone.
He sits beneath his jasmined porch,?His stick between his knees,?His eyes fixed vacant?On his moss-grown trees.
Grass springs in the green path,?His flowers are lean and dry,?His thatch hangs in wisps against?The evening sky.
He has no heart to care now,?Though the winds will blow?Whistling in his casement,?And the rain drip through.
He thinks of his old Bettie,?How she'd shake her head and say,?"You'll live to wish my sharp old tongue?Could scold--some day."
But as in pale high autumn skies?The swallows float and play,?His restless thoughts pass to and fro,?But nowhere stay.
Soft, on the morrow, they are gone;?His garden then will be?Denser and shadier and greener,?Greener the moss-grown tree.
MISS LOO
When thin-strewn memory I look through,?I see most clearly poor Miss Loo,?Her tabby cat, her cage of birds,?Her nose, her hair, her muffled words,?And how she would open her green eyes,?As if in some immense surprise,?Whenever as we sat at tea?She made some small remark to me.
'Tis always drowsy summer when?From out the past she comes again;?The westering sunshine in a pool?Floats in her parlour still and cool;?While the slim bird its lean wires shakes,?As into piercing song it breaks;?Till Peter's pale-green eyes ajar?Dream, wake; wake, dream, in one brief bar.?And I am sitting, dull and shy,?And she with gaze of vacancy,
And large hands folded on the tray,?Musing the afternoon away;?Her satin bosom heaving slow?With sighs that softly ebb and flow.?And her plain face in such dismay,?It seems unkind to look her way:?Until all cheerful back will come?Her gentle gleaming spirit home:?And one would think that poor Miss Loo?Asked nothing else, if she had you.
THE TAILOR
Few footsteps stray when dusk droops o'er?The tailor's old stone-lintelled door.?There sits he stitching half asleep,?Beside his smoky tallow dip.?"Click, click," his needle hastes, and shrill?Cries back the cricket beneath the sill.?Sometimes he stays, and over his thread?Leans sidelong his old tousled head;?Or stoops to peer with half-shut eye?When some strange footfall echoes by;?Till clearer gleams his candle's spark?Into the