A Boys Will | Page 7

I was young, we dwelt in a vale
By a misty fen that rang all
night,
And thus it was the maidens pale
I knew so well, whose
garments trail
Across the reeds to a window light.
The fen had
every kind of bloom,
And for every kind there was a face,
And a
voice that has sounded in my room
Across the sill from the outer
gloom.
Each came singly unto her place,
But all came every night
with the mist;
And often they brought so much to say
Of things of
moment to which, they wist,
One so lonely was fain to list,
That the
stars were almost faded away
Before the last went, heavy with dew,

Back to the place from which she came--
Where the bird was
before it flew,
Where the flower was before it grew,
Where bird and
flower were one and the same.
And thus it is I know so well
Why
the flower has odor, the bird has song.
You have only to ask me, and
I can tell.
No, not vainly there did I dwell,
Nor vainly listen all the
night long.
A Dream Pang
I HAD withdrawn in forest, and my song
Was swallowed up in leaves
that blew alway;
And to the forest edge you came one day
(This
was my dream) and looked and pondered long,
But did not enter,
though the wish was strong:
You shook your pensive head as who
should say,
'I dare not--too far in his footsteps stray--
He must seek

me would he undo the wrong.
Not far, but near, I stood and saw it all

Behind low boughs the trees let down outside;
And the sweet pang
it cost me not to call
And tell you that I saw does still abide.
But 'tis
not true that thus I dwelt aloof,
For the wood wakes, and you are here
for proof.
In Neglect
THEY leave us so to the way we took,
As two in whom they were
proved mistaken,
That we sit sometimes in the wayside nook,
With
mischievous, vagrant, seraphic look,
And try if we cannot feel
forsaken.
The Vantage Point
IF tired of trees I seek again mankind,
Well I know where to hie
me--in the dawn,
To a slope where the cattle keep the lawn.
There
amid lolling juniper reclined,
Myself unseen, I see in white defined

Far off the homes of men, and farther still,
The graves of men on an
opposing hill,
Living or dead, whichever are to mind.
And if by
moon I have too much of these,
I have but to turn on my arm, and lo,

The sun-burned hillside sets my face aglow,
My breathing shakes
the bluet like a breeze,
I smell the earth, I smell the bruisèd plant,
I
look into the crater of the ant.
Mowing
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 labor knows.
My long scythe whispered and left
the hay to make.
Going for Water
THE well was dry beside the door,
And so we went with pail and can

Across the fields behind the house
To seek the brook if still it ran;

Not loth to have excuse to go,
Because the autumn eve was fair

(Though chill), because the fields were ours,
And by the brook our
woods were there.
We ran as if to meet the moon
That slowly
dawned behind the trees,
The barren boughs without the leaves,

Without the birds, without the breeze.
But once within the wood, we
paused
Like gnomes that hid us from the moon,
Ready to run to
hiding new
With laughter when she found us soon.
Each laid on
other a staying hand
To listen ere we dared to look,
And in the hush
we joined to make
We heard, we knew we heard the brook.
A note
as from a single place,
A slender tinkling fall that made
Now drops
that floated on the pool
Like pearls, and now a silver blade.
Revelation
WE make ourselves a place apart
Behind light words that tease and
flout,
But oh, the agitated heart
Till someone find us really out.

'Tis pity if the case require
(Or so we say) that in the end
We speak
the literal to inspire
The understanding of a friend.
But so with all,
from babes that play
At hide-and-seek to God afar,
So all who hide
too well away
Must speak and tell us where they are.
The Trial by Existence
EVEN the bravest that are slain
Shall not dissemble their surprise

On waking to find valor reign,
Even as on earth, in paradise;
And
where they sought without the sword
Wide fields of asphodel fore'er,

To find that the utmost reward
Of daring should be still to dare.


The light