Heap high the wood on my rusty grate
As I sit enthroned like a potentate
In my old arm chair, while the crackling blaze
Unbars the gates, to my dazzled gaze,
Of a flame bright world that my fancy weaves
Though the storm may batter the creaking eaves.
There is Norway pine from the Arctic’s chill
From wrecks that splintered off Peaked Hill;
There is stout oak fashioned by broad axe blows,
And stranger wood that the jungle grows;
For such is the tribute I levy, - these
Are the far flung gifts of the seven seas.
The surf that claws at the wind swept beach
Like skeleton fingers seems to reach
For my lonely shelter; but staunch it stands
Though its walls resound to the rattling sands
The army of things,
like a horde of locusts
has occupied
up to the smallest corners
almost all the space
of my big house, which I just bought.
Memories of my past,
like shy children lie wordlessly
on the angles of the sofas and armchairs.
Greed, like a hussy,
wanders around the rooms,
grinning, showing off,
shouting and cursing.
New house, big, all complete
with everything,
Yet I don’t feel comfortable at all.
I am my home,
my real estate.
Memory contests the deed
and title, would
force me to live
in recall, a phantom
condominium of fate.
I am the shack
of me, a self with rooms,
a past out back,
an attic that looms,
a pantry with brooms.
This is why blankets
at 4:13 a.m. feel
(why rain badgering
roof over the roof
First leaf of fall
as temperatures drop ,
letter from home.
The mountain green at my right :
The sunlight yellow at my left :
The laughing winds pass between,
The river white at my left :
The flowers red at my right :
The laughing girls go between.
The clouds sail away at my right ;
The birds flap down at my left :
The laughing moon appears between.
I turned left to the dale of poem ;
I turned right to the forest of Love :
But I hurry Home by the road between.
I ASKED for sunlight and a long, long day
To build my little home.
Setting an altar where my heart might lay
Fire ere the god should come.
I built my walls with patient carefulness,
Secure and small, nor knew
A wild wind straying from the wilderness
Had sought their shelter too.
My heart woke up in storms, my shelter sweet
In ruins fell apart.
Once more I go by cruel ways to meet
The ordeal of the heart.
The day that I come home,
What will you find to say,--
Words as light as foam
With laughter light as spray?
Yet say what words you will
The day that I come home;
I shall hear the whole deep ocean
Beating under the foam.
Waves are the sea's white daughters,
And raindrops the children of rain,
But why for my shimmering body
Have I a mother like Pain?
Night is the mother of stars,
And wind the mother of foam--
The world is brimming with beauty,
But I must stay at home.
He has come, he is here,
My love has come home,
The minutes are lighter
Than flying foam,
The hours are like dancers
On gold-slippered feet,
The days are young runners
Naked and fleet--
For my love has returned,
He is home, he is here,
In the whole world no other
Is dear as my dear!
Hushed in the smoky haze of summer sunset,
When I came home again from far-off places,
How many times I saw my western city
Dream by her river.
Then for an hour the water wore a mantle
Of tawny gold and mauve and misted turquoise
Under the tall and darkened arches bearing
Gray, high-flung bridges.
Against the sunset, water-towers and steeples
Flickered with fire up the slope to westward,
And old warehouses poured their purple shadows
Across the levee.
High over them the black train swept with thunder,
Cleaving the city, leaving far beneath it
Wharf-boats moored beside the old side-wheelers
Resting in twilight.
My mate, my friend, my love, my life.
My bosom's — as the phrase is — wife ;
My comrade in the hour of woe —
An hour whose limits I don't know —
My star in darkness, solace, balm.
My prophylaxis, refuge, calm.
Companion of the million blights
That plague my liver, purse and lights ;
My pleasant garden in the gloam.
My all — if you were ever home!
When I was a little lad
With folly on my lips,
Fain was I for journeying
All the seas in ships.
But now across the southern swell,
Every dawn I hear
The little streams of Duna
Running clear.
When I was a young man,
Before my beard was gray,
All to ships and sailormen
I gave my heart away.
But I'm weary of the sea-wind,
I'm weary of the foam,
And the little stars of Duna
Call me home.