Last night the Stork came stalking,
And, Stork, beneath your wing
Lay, lapped in dreamless slumber,
The tiniest little thing!
From Babyland, out yonder
Beside a silver sea,
You brought a priceless treasure
As gift to mine and me!
Last night my dear one listened -
And, wife, you knew the cry -
The dear old Stork has sought our home
A many times gone by!
And in your gentle bosom
I found the pretty thing
That from the realm out yonder
Our friend the Stork did bring.
OFTEN I had gone this way before:
But now it seemed I never could be
And never had been anywhere else;
'Twas home; one nationality
We had, I and the birds that sang,
One memory.
They welcomed me. I had come back
That eve somehow from somewhere far:
The April mist, the chill, the calm,
Meant the same thing familiar
And pleasant to us, and strange too,
Yet with no bar.
The thrush on the oaktop in the lane
Sang his last song, or last but one;
And as he ended, on the elm
Another had but just begun
we all burn in tune
instrumental
to every dying bottle
where I have my croft
where I burrow in
doubt flowers in each place I drink
each quiet home with the misfortune
of having me within
about my art
about my purpose
and I rant till past two
an office all morning
at noon a home
a very busy stone
among the thin
business of the corn
a chimney where
there was a home
a bed
of asparagus
I walk to think
to see clear on foot
night fitting
a paper multitude
no mine back home
where I might have gone
in our paper office
in our cleared wood
that only mind will ever own
where to write
letters home to
alone abroad
I find my unself
find my if picture
like another face
I will make my go home
fit my tomorrow journey
I get spiritual about liver
that lone wing
like a dark home
settling accounts with someone below
my breath in the window
of the bookseller’s
some books sing
some give me a home
the war ended some other me
we were as one
in the assignment of heart
having seen the way to write
letters home