Part 3

There was never a sound beside the wood but one, And that was my long scythe whispering to the ground. What was it it whispered? I knew not well myself; Perhaps it was something about the heat of the sun, Something, perhaps, about the lack of sound—- And that was why it whispered and did not speak. It was no dream of the gift of idle hours, Or easy gold at the hand of fay or elf: Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak To the earnest love that laid the swale in rows, Not without feeble-pointed spikes of flowers (Pale orchises), and scared a bright green snake. The fact is the sweetest dream that labour knows. My long scythe whispered and left the hay to make.

IV

AFTER APPLE-PICKING

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree Toward heaven still, And there's a barrel that I didn't fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didn't pick upon some bough. But I am done with apple-picking now. Essence of winter sleep is on the night, The scent of apples: I am drowsing off. I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight I got from looking through a pane of glass I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough And held against the world of hoary grass. It melted, and I let it fall and break. But I was well Upon my way to sleep before it fell, And I could tell What form my dreaming was about to take. Magnified apples appear and disappear, Stem end and blossom end, And every fleck of russet showing clear. My instep arch not only keeps the ache, It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round. I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend. And I keep hearing from the cellar bin The rumbling sound Of load on load of apples coming in. For I have had too much Of apple-picking: I am overtired Of the great harvest I myself desired. There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall. For all That struck the earth, No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, Went surely to the cider-apple heap As of no worth. One can see what will trouble This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is. Were he not gone, The woodchuck could say whether it's like his Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, Or just some human sleep.

BIRCHES

When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy's been swinging them. But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay. Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning After a rain. They click upon themselves As the breeze rises, and turn many-coloured As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel. Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust—- Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen. They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves: You may see their trunks arching in the woods Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground, Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair Before them over their heads to dry in the sun. But I was going to say when Truth broke in With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm, I should prefer to have some boy bend them As he went out and in to fetch the cows—- Some boy too far from town to learn baseball, Whose only play was what he found himself, Summer or winter, and could play alone. One by one he subdued his father's trees By riding them down over and over again Until he took the stiffness out of them, And not one but hung limp, not one was left For him to conquer. He learned all there was To learn about not launching out too soon And so not carrying the tree away Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise To the top branches, climbing carefully With the same pains you use to fill a cup Up to the brim, and even above the brim. Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be. It's when I'm weary of considerations, And life is too much like a pathless wood Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs Broken across it, and one eye is weeping From a twig's having lashed across it open. I'd like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate wilfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better. I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree, And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk _Toward_ heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

THE GUM-GATHERER

There overtook me and drew me in To his down-hill, early-morning stride, And set me five miles on my road Better than if he had had me ride, A man with a swinging bag for load And half the bag wound round his hand. We talked like barking above the din Of water we walked along beside. And for my telling him where I'd been And where I lived in mountain land To be coming home the way I was, He told me a little about himself. He came from higher up in the pass Where the grist of the new-beginning brooks Is blocks split off the mountain mass—- And hopeless grist enough it looks Ever to grind to soil for grass. (The way it is will do for moss.) There he had built his stolen shack. It had to be a stolen shack Because of the fears of fire and loss That trouble the sleep of lumber folk: Visions of half the world burned black And the sun shrunken yellow in smoke. We know who when they come to town Bring berries under the wagon seat, Or a basket of eggs between their feet; What this man brought in a cotton sack Was gum, the gum of the mountain spruce. He showed me lumps of the scented stuff Like uncut jewels, dull and rough. It comes to market golden brown; But turns to pink between the teeth.

I told him this is a pleasant life To set your breast to the bark of trees That all your days are dim beneath, And reaching up with a little knife, To loose the resin and take it down And bring it to market when you please.

THE MOUNTAIN

The mountain held the town as in a shadow. I saw so much before I slept there once: I noticed that I missed stars in the west, Where its black body cut into the sky. Near me it seemed: I felt it like a wall Behind which I was sheltered from a wind. And yet between the town and it I found, When I walked forth at dawn to see new things, Were fields, a river, and beyond, more fields. The river at the time was fallen away, And made a widespread brawl on cobble-stones; But the signs showed what it had done in spring; Good grass-land gullied out, and in the grass Ridges of sand, and driftwood stripped of bark. I crossed the river and swung round the mountain. And there I met a man who moved so slow With white-faced oxen in a heavy cart, It seemed no harm to stop him altogether.

"What town is this?" I asked.

"This? Lunenburg." Then I was wrong: the town of my sojourn, Beyond the bridge, was not that of the mountain, But only felt at night its shadowy presence. "Where is your village? Very far from here?"

"There is no village—-only scattered farms. We were but sixty voters last election. We can't in nature grow to many more: That thing takes all the room!" He moved his goad. The mountain stood there to be pointed at. Pasture ran up the side a little way, And then there was a wall of trees with trunks: After that only tops of trees, and cliffs Imperfectly concealed among the leaves. A dry ravine emerged from under boughs Into the pasture.

"That looks like a path. Is that the way to reach the top from here?—- Not for this morning, but some other time: I must be getting back to breakfast now."

"I don't advise your trying from this side. There is no proper path, but those that _have_ Been up, I understand, have climbed from Ladd's. That's five miles back. You can't mistake the place: They logged it there last winter some way up. I'd take you, but I'm bound the other way."

"You've never climbed it?"

"I've been on the sides Deer-hunting and trout-fishing. There's a brook That starts up on it somewhere—-I've heard say Right on the top, tip-top—-a curious thing. But what would interest you about the brook, It's always cold in summer, warm in winter. One of the great sights going is to see It steam in winter like an ox's breath. Until the bushes all along its banks Are inch-deep with the frosty spines and bristles—- You know the kind. Then let the sun shine on it!"

"There ought to be a view around the world From such a mountain—-if it isn't wooded Clear to the top." I saw through leafy screens Great granite terraces in sun and shadow, Shelves one could rest a knee on getting up—- With depths behind him sheer a hundred feet; Or turn and sit on and look out and down, With little ferns in crevices at his elbow.

"As to that I can't say. But there's the spring, Right on the summit, almost like a fountain. That ought to be worth seeing."

"If it's there. You never saw it?"

I guess there's no doubt About its being there. I never saw it. It may not be right on the very top: It wouldn't have to be a long way down To have some head of water from above, And a _good distance_ down might not be noticed By anyone who'd come a long way up. One time I asked a fellow climbing it To look and tell me later how it was."

"What did he say?"

"He said there was a lake Somewhere in Ireland on a mountain top."

"But a lake's different. What about the spring?"

"He never got up high enough to see. That's why I don't advise your trying this side. He tried this side. I've always meant to go And look myself, but you know how it is: It doesn't seem so much to climb a mountain You've worked around the foot of all your life. What would I do? Go in my overalls, With a big stick, the same as when the cows Haven't come down to the bars at milking time? Or with a shotgun for a stray black bear? 'Twouldn't seem real to climb for climbing it."

"I shouldn't climb it if I didn't want to—- Not for the sake of climbing. What's its name?"

"We call it Hor: I don't know if that's right."

"Can one walk round it? Would it be too far?"

"You can drive round and keep in Lunenburg, But it's as much as ever you can do, The boundary lines keep in so close to it. Hor is the township, and the township's Hor—- _And_ a few houses sprinkled round the foot, Like boulders broken off the upper cliff, Rolled out a little farther than the rest."

"Warm in December, cold in June, you say?"

"I don't suppose the waters changed at all. You and I know enough to know it's warm Compared with cold, and cold compared with warm. But all the fun's in how you say a thing."

"You've lived here all your life?"

"Ever since Hor

Was no bigger than a----" What, I did not hear. He drew the oxen toward him with light touches Of his slim goad on nose and offside flank, Gave them their marching orders, and was moving.

THE TUFT OF FLOWERS

I went to turn the grass once after one Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen Before I came to view the levelled scene.

I looked for him behind an isle of trees; I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown, And I must be, as he had been—-alone,

"As all must be," I said within my heart, "Whether they work together or apart."

But as I said it, swift there passed me by On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,

Seeking with memories grown dim o'er night Some resting flower of yesterday's delight.

And once I marked his flight go round and round, As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

And then he flew as far as eye could see, And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

I thought of questions that have no reply, And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;

But he turned first, and led my eye to look At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

I left my place to know them by their name, Finding them butterfly weed when I came.

The mower in the dew had loved them thus, By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him. But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.

The butterfly and I had lit upon, Nevertheless, a message from the dawn.

That made me hear the wakening birds around, And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,

And feel a spirit kindred to my own; So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid, And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

"Men work together," I told him from the heart, "Whether they work together or apart."

MENDING WALL

Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone, But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbour know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance: "Stay where you are until our backs are turned!" We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of out-door game, One on a side. It comes to little more: There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, "Good fences make good neighbours." Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: "_Why_ do they make good neighbours? Isn't it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offence. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him, But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather He said it for himself. I see him there Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me, Not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father's saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, "Good fences make good neighbours."

AN ENCOUNTER

Once on the kind of day called "weather breeder," When the heat slowly hazes and the sun By its own power seems to be undone, I was half boring through, half climbing through, A swamp of cedar. Choked with oil of cedar And scurf of plants, and weary and over-heated, And sorry I ever left the road I knew, I paused and rested on a sort of hook That had me by the coat as good as seated, And since there was no other way to look, Looked up toward heaven, and there against the blue Stood over me a resurrected tree, A tree that had been down and raised again—- A barkless spectre. He had halted too, As if for fear of treading upon me. I saw the strange position of his hands—- Up at his shoulders, dragging yellow strands Of wire with something in it from men to men. "You here?" I said. "Where aren't you nowadays? And what's the news you carry—-if you know? And tell me where you're off for-—Montreal? Me? I'm not off for anywhere at all. Sometimes I wander out of beaten ways Half looking for the orchid Calypso."

THE WOOD-PILE

Out walking in the frozen swamp one gray day I paused and said, "I will turn back from here. No, I will go on farther—-and we shall see." The hard snow held me, save where now and then One foot went through. The view was all in lines Straight up and down of tall slim trees Too much alike to mark or name a place by So as to say for certain I was here Or somewhere else: I was just far from home. A small bird flew before me. He was careful To put a tree between us when he lighted, And say no word to tell me who he was Who was so foolish as to think what _he_ thought. He thought that I was after him for a feather—- The white one in his tail; like one who takes Everything said as personal to himself. One flight out sideways would have undeceived him. And then there was a pile of wood for which I forgot him and let his little fear Carry him off the way I might have gone, Without so much as wishing him good-night. He went behind it to make his last stand. It was a cord of maple, cut and split And piled—-and measured, four by four by eight. And not another like it could I see. No runner tracks in this year's snow looped near it. And it was older sure than this year's cutting, Or even last year's or the year's before. The wood was gray and the bark warping off it And the pile somewhat sunken. Clematis Had wound strings round and round it like a bundle. What held it though on one side was a tree Still growing, and on one a stake and prop, These latter about to fall. I thought that only Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks Could so forget his handiwork on which He spent himself, the labour of his axe, And leave it there far from a useful fireplace To warm the frozen swamp as best it could With the slow smokeless burning of decay.

V

SNOW

The three stood listening to a fresh access Of wind that caught against the house a moment, Gulped snow, and then blew free again—-the Coles Dressed, but dishevelled from some hours of sleep, Meserve belittled in the great skin coat he wore.

Meserve was first to speak. He pointed backward Over his shoulder with his pipe-stem, saying, "You can just see it glancing off the roof Making a great scroll upward toward the sky, Long enough for recording all our names on; I think I'll just call up my wife and tell her I'm here—-so far—-and starting on again. I'll call her softly so that if she's wise And gone to sleep, she needn't wake to answer." Three times he barely stirred the bell, then listened. "Why, Lett, still up? Lett, I'm at Cole's. I'm late. I called you up to say Good-night from here Before I went to say Good-morning there.—- I thought I would.—-I know, but, Lett—-I know—- I could, but what's the sense? The rest won't be So bad.—-Give me an hour for it.—-Ho, ho! Three hours to here! But that was all up hill; The rest is down.—-Why, no, no, not a wallow: They kept their heads and took their time to it Like darlings, both of them. They're in the barn.—- My dear, I'm coming just the same. I didn't Call you to ask you to invite me home.—-" He lingered for some word she wouldn't say, Said it at last himself, "Good-night," and then, Getting no answer, closed the telephone. The three stood in the lamplight round the table With lowered eyes a moment till he said, "I'll just see how the horses are."

"Yes, do," Both the Coles said together. Mrs. Cole Added: "You can judge better after seeing.—- I want you here with me, Fred. Leave him here, Brother Meserve. You know to find your way Out through the shed."

"I guess I know my way, I guess I know where I can find my name Carved in the shed to tell me who I am If it don't tell me where I am. I used To play----"

"You tend your horses and come back. Fred Cole, you're going to let him!"

"Well, aren't you? How can you help yourself?"

"I called him Brother. Why did I call him that?"

"It's right enough. That's all you ever heard him called round here. He seems to have lost off his Christian name."

"Christian enough I should call that myself. He took no notice, did he? Well, at least I didn't use it out of love of him, The dear knows. I detest the thought of him With his ten children under ten years old. I hate his wretched little Racker Sect, All's ever I heard of it, which isn't much. But that's not saying---- Look, Fred Cole, it's twelve, Isn't it, now? He's been here half an hour. He says he left the village store at nine. Three hours to do four miles—-a mile an hour Or not much better. Why, it doesn't seem As if a man could move that slow and move. Try to think what he did with all that time. And three miles more to go!"

"Don't let him go. Stick to him, Helen. Make him answer you. That sort of man talks straight on all his life From the last thing he said himself, stone deaf To anything anyone else may say. I should have thought, though, you could make him hear you."

"What is he doing out a night like this? Why can't he stay at home?"

"He had to preach."

"It's no night to be out."

"He may be small, He may be good, but one thing's sure, he's tough."

"And strong of stale tobacco."

"He'll pull through."

"You only say so. Not another house Or shelter to put into from this place To theirs. I'm going to call his wife again."

"Wait and he may. Let's see what he will do. Let's see if he will think of her again. But then I doubt he's thinking of himself. He doesn't look on it as anything."

"He shan't go--there!"

"It is a night, my dear."

"One thing: he dicing drag God into it."

"He don't consider it a case for God."

"You think so, do you? You don't know the kind. He's getting up a miracle this minute. Privately—-to himself, right now, he's thinking He'll make a case of it if he succeeds, But keep still if he fails."

"Keep still all over. He'll be dead--dead and buried."

"Such a trouble! Not but I've every reason not to care What happens to him if it only takes Some of the sanctimonious conceit Out of one of those pious scalawags."

"Nonsense to that! You want to see him safe."

"You like the runt."

"Don't you a little?"

"Well, I don't like what he's doing, which is what You like, and like him for."

"Oh, yes, you do You like your fun as well as anyone; Only you women have to put these airs on To impress men. You've got us so ashamed Of being men we can't look at a good fight Between two boys and not feel bound to stop it. Let the man freeze an ear or two, I say.—- He's here. I leave him all to you. Go in And save his life.—-All right, come in, Meserve Sit down, sit down. How did you find the horses?"

"Fine, fine."

"And ready for some more? My wife here Says it won't do. You've got to give it up."

"Won't you to please me? Please! If I say please? Mr. Meserve, I'll leave it to _your_ wife. What _did_ your wife say on the telephone?"