Now if it was dusk outside,
Inside it was dark.
Too dark in the woods for a bird
By sleight of wing
To better its perch for the night,
Though it still could sing.
The last of the light of the sun
That had died in the west
Still lived for one song more
In a thrush’s breast.
Far in the pillared dark
Thrush music went —
Almost like a call to come in
To the dark and lament.
But no, I was out for stars;
I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked;
And I hadn’t been.
Deeper down in the well than where the waterGives me back in a shining surface pictureMe myself in the summer heaven godlikeLooking out of a wreath of fern and cloud puffs.Once, when trying with chin against a well-curb,I discerned, as I thought, beyond the picture,Through the picture, a something white, uncertain,Something more of the depths–and…
A winter garden in an alder swamp,Where conies now come out to sun and romp,As near a paradise as it can beAnd not melt snow or start a dormant tree. It lifts existence on a plane of snowOne level higher than the earth below,One level nearer heaven overhead,And last year’s berries shining scarlet red. It…
Back up a stream of radiance to the sky,And back through history up the stream of time.And you were given this swiftness, not for hasteNor chiefly that you may go where you will,But in the rush of everything to waste,That you may have the power of standing still-Off any still or moving thing you say.Two…
I left you in the morning,And in the morning glow,You walked a way beside meTo make me sad to go.Do you know me in the gloaming,Gaunt and dusty gray with roaming?Are you dumb because you know me not,Or dumb because you know? All for me And not a questionFor the faded flowers gayThat could take…
Before it stained a single human breast.The stricken flower bent double and so hung.And still the bird revisited her young.A butterfly its fall had dispossessedA moment sought in air his flower of rest,Then lightly stooped to it and fluttering clung.On the bare upland pasture there had spreadO’ernight ‘twixt mullein stalks a wheel of threadAnd straining…
And thought of doing something to the shoreThat water never did to land before.The clouds were low and hairy in the skies,Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.You could not tell, and yet it looked as ifThe shore was lucky in being backed by cliff,The cliff in being backed by continent;It looked as…
