Part 5

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 all, 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._

FOOTNOTES

[1]Cf. page 37, "The Axe-helve."

[2]Cf. line 5, page 21, "A Star in a Stone-boat."

[3]Cf. page 56, "The Witch of Coös."

[4]Cf. line 31, page 25, "The Census-Taker;" line 26, page 27, "The Star-splitter;" and line 21, page 21, "A Star in a Stone-boat."

[5]Cf. page 49, "Wild Grapes."

[6]Cf. page 67, "A Fountain, a Bottle, a Donkey's Ears and Some Books."

[7]Cf. page 31, "Maple."

[8]Cf. page 61, "The Pauper Witch of Grafton."

[9]Cf. page 24, "The Census-taker."

[10]Cf. page 41, "The Grindstone."

[11]Cf. page 37, "The Axe-helve."

[12]Cf. page 27, "The Star-splitter."

[13]Cf. page 64, "The Pauper Witch of Grafton."

[14]Cf. line 27, page 50, "Wild Grapes."

[15]Cf. page 27, "The Star-splitter."

[16]Cf. page 44, "Paul's Wife."

[17]Cf. page 65, "An Empty Threat."

[18]Cf. page 67, "A Fountain, a Bottle, a Donkey's Ears and Some Books."

[19]Cf. page 21, "A Star in a Stone-boat;" and page 73, "I Will Sing You One-O."

Transcriber's Notes

--Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.

--Silently corrected a few palpable typos.

--In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by _underscores_.