Works

1
The moon hummed like a refrigerator,
light thru shadows
- the solitude of dusk closing in;
black scars visible across
the moon's face shaped like
mountainous hands, all...

You could have driven
a pick-up truck
thru spokes of that moon, so big and radiant
this upended water chestnut -
ground mist weeping
in the shadows
flutter of an old woman's shawl,...

Now the autumn maize is growing,
Now the corn-cob fills,
Where the Little River flowing
Winds among the hills.
Over mountain peaks outlying
Clear against the blue
Comes a scout in silence flying,...

Methought the world was bound with final frost;
The sun, made hueless as with fear and awe,
Illumined yet the lands it could not thaw.
Then on my road, with instant evening crost,...

In the winter children go
Walking in the fields of snow
Where there is no grass at all,
And the top of every wall,
Every fence, and every tree
Is as white as white can be.
...

Heaven-invading hills are drowned
In wide moving waves of mist,
Phlox before my door are wound
In dripping wreaths of amethyst.

Ten feet away the solid earth
Changes into melting cloud,...

Where run your colts at pasture?
Where hide your mares to breed?
'Mid bergs about the Ice-cap
Or wove Sargasso weed;
By chartless reef and channel,
Or crafty coastwise bars,...

Is it not a wonderful thing to be able to force an astonished plant to bear rare flowers which are foreign to it ... and to obtain a marvellous result from sap which, left to itself, would have produced corollas without beauty?...

I haven't locked the door,
Nor lit the candles,
You don't know, don't care,
That tired I haven't the strength
To decide to go to bed.
Seeing the fields fade in
The sunset murk of pine-needles,...

Day and night pass over, rounding,
Star and cloud and sun,
Things of drift and shadow, empty
Of my dearest one.

Soft as slumber was my baby,
Beaming bright and sweet;...

If you and I could change to beasts, what beast should either be?
Shall you and I play Jove for once? Turn fox then, I decree!
Shy wild sweet stealer of the grapes! Now do your worst on me!
...

(To a Young Girl)


Say whither, whither, pretty one?
The hour is young at present!
How hushed is all the world around!
Ere dawn--the streets hold not a sound.
O whither, whither do you run?...

Whither away, youth, whither away,
With lightsome step, and with joyous heart,
And eyes that Hope's gay glances dart?
Whither away--whither away?

Into the world, the glorious world,...

Come down! come down! O Holy Ghost!
As once of old Thou didst come down
In fiery tongues at Pentecost,
The Apostolic heads to crown.

Come down! though now no flame divine,...

Not o'er thy dust let there be spent
The gush of maudlin sentiment;
Such drift as that is not for thee,
Whose life and deeds and songs agree,
Sublime in their simplicity.
...

Others seek for music in the twitter
Of the sweet, charming notes of Whittier.

My friend must be a bird,
Because it flies!
Mortal my friend must be,
Because it dies!
Barbs has it, like a bee.
Ah, curious friend,
Thou puzzlest me!

Who bides his time, and day by day
Faces defeat full patiently,
And lifts a mirthful roundelay,
However poor his fortunes be,
He will not fail in any qualm
Of poverty - the paltry dime...

Who but is pleased to watch the moon on high
Traveling where she from time to time enshrouds
Her head, and nothing loth her Majesty
Renounces, till among the scattered clouds...

Down in a cellar cottage
In a dark and lonely street,
Was sat a widow and her boy,
With nothing left to eat.

The night was wild and stormy,
The wind howl'd round the door,...