We will never walk again
As we used to walk at night,
Watching our shadows lengthen
Under the gold street-light
When the snow was new and white.
We will never walk again
Slowly, we two,
In spring when the park is sweet
With midnight and with dew,
And the passers-by are few.
I sit and think of it all,
And the blue June twilight dies,--
Down in the clanging square
A street-piano cries
And stars come out in the skies.
Will you come as of old with singing,
And shall I hear as of old?
Shall I rush to open the window
In spite of the arrowy cold?
Ah no, my dear, ah no,
I shall sit by the fire reading,
Though you sing half the night in the snow
I shall not be heeding.
Though your voice remembers the forest,
The warm green light and the birds,
Though you gather the sea in your singing
And pour its sound into words,
Even so, my dear, even so,
I shall not heed you at all;
Though your shoulders are white with snow,
Though you strain your voice to a call,
I shall have winter now and lessening days,
Lit by a smoky sun with slanting rays,
And after falling leaves, the first determined frost.
The colors of the world will all be lost.
So be it; the faint buzzing of the snow
Will fill the empty boughs,
And after sleet storms I shall wake to see
A glittering glassy plume of every tree.
Nothing shall tempt me from my fire-lit house,
And I shall find at night a friendly ember
And make my life of what I can remember.
I stood beside a hill
Smooth with new-laid snow,
A single star looked out
From the cold evening glow.
There was no other creature
That saw what I could see--
I stood and watched the evening star
As long as it watched me.
Dawn turned on her purple pillow
And late, late came the winter day,
Snow was curved to the boughs of the willow,
The sunless world was white and grey.
At noon we heard a blue-jay scolding,
At five the last thin light was lost
From snow-banked windows faintly holding
The feathery filigree of frost.
There was a bush with scarlet berries
And there were hemlocks heaped with snow;
With a sound like surf on long sea-beaches
They took the wind and let it go.
The hills were shining in their samite,
Fold after fold they flowed away--
“Let come what may,” your eyes were saying,
“At least we two have had to-day.”
I shall live to be old, who feared I should die young,
I shall live to be old,
I shall cling to life as the leaves to the creaking oak
In the rustle of falling snow and the cold.
The other trees let loose their leaves on the air
In their russet and red,
I have lived long enough to wonder which is the best,
And to envy sometimes the way of the early dead.
Serene descent, as a red leaf’s descending
When there is neither wind nor noise of rain,
But only autumn air and the unending
Drawing of all things to the earth again:
So be it; let the snow sift deep and cover
All that was drunken once with light and air;
The earth will not regret her tireless lover,
Nor he awake to know she does not care.
The ant, he lays aside some dough
Against the time of cold and snow ;
He doesn't trust a bit to luck,
But gathers his assorted truck: —
If I could live just like the ant
I'd be as thrifty — but I can't.
Poor little traveller, lost in night!
God made a miracle, I know,
To give you life — tears and delight,
And ecstasy and ancient woe.
Yet barefoot in the snow you stand,
Beseeching bread with shaking hand.
Poor baby, with your wistful face!
When you are grown a man, and tall,
You'll have the kingly, simple grace,
The smile that makes a festival.
Yet from the dark your hungry eyes
Behold the cook-shop’s paradise.
Powder
Of diamond
Upon a silver birch;
Old stone wall
Buried deep.
And you ...
A scarlet bird
Whose wild wings flutter here
Against my soul. How still
The world!
I love you, malcontent
Male wind--
Shaking the pollen from a flower
Or hurling the sea backward from the grinning sand.
Blow on and over my dreams...
Scatter my sick dreams...
Throw your lusty arms about me...
Envelop all my hot body...
Carry me to pine forests--
Great, rough-bearded forests...
Bring me to stark plains and steppes...
I would have the North to-night--
The cold, enduring North.
And if we should meet the Snow,
Whirling in spirals,
And he should blind my eyes...