On moony nights the dogs bark shrill
Down the valley and up the hill.
There's one is angry to behold
The moon so unafraid and cold,
Who makes the earth as bright as day,
But yet unhappy, dead, and gray.
Another in his strawy lair
Says: "Who's a-howling over there?
By heavens I will stop him soon
From interfering with the moon."
So back he barks, with throat upthrown:
"You leave our moon, our moon alone."
And other distant dogs respond
Beyond the fields, beyond, beyond.
The night was coming very fast;
It reached the gate as I ran past.
The pigeons had gone to the tower of the church
And all the hens were on their perch,
Up in the barn, and I thought I heard
A piece of a little purring word.
I stopped inside, waiting and staying,
To try to hear what the hens were saying.
They were asking something, that was plain,
Asking it over and over again.
One of them moved and turned around,
Her feathers made a ruffled sound,
A ruffled sound, like a bushful of birds,
And she said her little asking words.
She pushed her head close into her wing,
But nothing answered anything.
We had to wait for the heat to pass,
And I was lying on the grass,
While Mother sat outside the door,
And I saw how many stars there were.
Beyond the tree, beyond the air,
And more and more were always there.
So many that I think they must
Be sprinkled on the sky like dust.
A dust is coming through the sky!
And I felt myself begin to cry.
So many of them and so small,
Suppose I cannot know them all.
When Grandmother Polly had married and gone,
But before her father had given her Clem,
Or Joe, or Sandy, or Evaline--
Before he had given her any of them,
She used to live in a far-away place,
In a little cabin that was her home,
And all around were bushes and trees,
And the wolves could come.
At night they ran down out of the rocks
And bristled up their trembly fur.
They came and howled by Polly's door
And showed their little white teeth at her.
The icicles wreathing
On trees in festoon
Swing, swayed to our breathing:
They're made of the moon.
She's a pale, waxen taper;
And these seem to drip
Transparent as paper
From the flame of her tip.
Molten, smoking a little,
Into crystal they pass;
Falling, freezing, to brittle
And delicate glass.
Each a sharp-pointed flower,
Each a brief stalactite
Which hangs for an hour
In the blue cave of night.
"Where are you going to-night, to-night, --
Where are you going, John Evereldown?
There's never the sign of a star in sight,
Nor a lamp that's nearer than Tilbury Town.
Why do you stare as a dead man might?
Where are you pointing away from the light?
And where are you going to-night, to-night, --
Where are you going, John Evereldown?"
"Right through the forest, where none can see,
There's where I'm going, to Tilbury Town.
The men are asleep, -- or awake, may be, --
But the women are calling John Evereldown.
Ever and ever they call for me,
And while they call can a man be free?
So right through the forest, where none can see,
There's where I'm going, to Tilbury Town."
O GIRL with honey-coloured hair,
And will you come and dance with me ?
The night is dark but you can spare
Light from your eyes for both to see,
And in the shade of trees divine
Like a whirled torch your hair will shine.
So dance apart and dance away ;
The rest about the lanterns gather,
But there is light for two to play
In any place where we're together,
And there is soft long grass and shadow
Beneath the rick across the meadow.
For love in darkness is at ease
And likes no candle save the light
Of kindled eyes and glowing tress
And bodies luminous with delight.
Come out and walk. The last few drops of light
Drain silently out of the cloudy blue ;
The trees are full of the dark-stooping night,
The fields are wet with dew.
All's quiet in the wood but, far away,
Down the hillside and out across the plain,
Moves, with long trail of white that marks its way,
The softly panting train.
Come through the clearing. Hardly now we see
The flowers, save dark or light against the grass,
Or glimmering silver on a scented tree
That trembles as we pass.
Hark now ! So far, so far ... that distant song . . .
Move not the rustling grasses with your feet.
The dusk is full of sounds, that all along
The muttering boughs repeat.
Under the leaves of that tremendous oak,
Where the low stars lie tangled, there is shade
Delusive and the leafy hedges fade
Into the darkness like a curling smoke.
O in the shadow there,
Come with me, love, there let us two repair
To mingle with the darkness and be lost,
As somewhere viewless ghost with viewless ghost
May meet, caress and shiver with sweet pain,
Invisibly enamoured. So may we
Lie in each other's arms invisibly
And touch and see not, kiss and kiss again
With lips obscure,
That find their way as ardent and as sure
In darkness as in day.
Come ! there the softly moving shadows play
In my Spanish cloak,
And old slouch hat,
And overshoes of felt,
And Tyke, my faithful dog,
And my knotted hickory cane,
I slipped about with a bull’s-eye lantern
From door to door on the square,
As the midnight stars wheeled round,
And the bell in the steeple murmured
From the blowing of the wind;
And the weary steps of old Doc Hill
Sounded like one who walks in sleep,
And a far-off rooster crew.
And now another is watching Spoon River
As others watched before me.
And here we lie, Doc Hill and I
I staggered on through darkness,
There was a hazy sky, a few stars
Which I followed as best I could.
It was nine o’clock, I was trying to get home.
But somehow I was lost,
Though really keeping the road.
Then I reeled through a gate and into a yard,
And called at the top of my voice:
“Oh, Fiddler! Oh, Mr. Jones!”
(I thought it was his house and he would show me the way home. )
But who should step out but A. D. Blood,
In his night shirt, waving a stick of wood,
And roaring about the cursed saloons,
And the criminals they made?
“You drunken Oscar Hummel,” he said,
As I stood there weaving to and fro,
Laughter and song for my cheer,
Life is so fair.
None so happy as I
Anywhere ;
Birds in the woods carol clear,
White clouds in the sky.
Song silent and brow with a frown,
Why is this so ?
Guiltless am I
Would you know,
The lark from the heavens drops down ;
Grey clouds in the sky.
Sighing and tears for my sorrow,
Life is so drear,
None so weary as I,
'Tis a mere