Now Close the Windows
Now close the windows
and hush all the fields;
If the trees must, let them
silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and
if there is,
Be it my loss.
It will be long ere the marshes
resume,
It will be long ere the earliest
bird:
So close the windows and
not hear the wind,
But see all wind-stirred.
A Line-storm Song
The line-storm clouds
fly tattered and swift,
The road is forlorn all day,
Where a myriad snowy quartz
stones lift,
And the hoof-prints vanish
away.
The roadside flowers, too
wet for the bee,
Expend their bloom in vain.
Come over the hills and far
with me,
And be my love in the rain.
The birds have less to say
for themselves
In the wood-world’s
torn despair
Than now these numberless
years the elves,
Although they are no less
there:
All song of the woods is
crushed like some
Wild, easily shattered rose.
Come, be my love in the wet
woods; come,
Where the boughs rain when
it blows.
There is the gale to urge
behind
And bruit our singing down,
And the shallow waters aflutter
with wind
From which to gather your
gown.
What matter if we go clear
to the west,
And come not through dry-shod?
For wilding brooch shall
wet your breast
The rain-fresh goldenrod.
Oh, never this whelming east
wind swells
But it seems like the sea’s
return
To the ancient lands where
it left the shells
Before the age of the fern;
And it seems like the time
when after doubt
Our love came back amain.
Oh, come forth into the storm
and rout
And be my love in the rain.
October
O hushed October morning
mild,
Thy leaves have ripened to
the fall;
To-morrow’s wind, if
it be wild,
Should waste them all.
The crows above the forest
call;
To-morrow they may form and
go.
O hushed October morning
mild,
Begin the hours of this day
slow,
Make the day seem to us less
brief.
Hearts not averse to being
beguiled,
Beguile us in the way you
know;
Release one leaf at break
of day;
At noon release another leaf;
One from our trees, one far
away;
Retard the sun with gentle
mist;
Enchant the land with amethyst.
Slow, slow!
For the grapes’ sake,
if they were all,
Whose leaves already are
burnt with frost,
Whose clustered fruit must
else be lost—
For the grapes’ sake
along the wall.
My Butterfly
THINE emulous fond flowers
are dead, too,
And the daft sun-assaulter,
he
That frighted thee so oft,
is fled or dead:
Save only me
(Nor is it sad to thee!)
Save only me
There is none left to mourn
thee in the fields.
The gray grass is not dappled
with the snow;
Its two banks have not shut
upon the river;
But it is long ago—
It seems forever—
Since first I saw thee glance,
With all the dazzling other
ones,
In airy dalliance,
Precipitate in love,
Tossed, tangled, whirled
and whirled above,
Like a limp rose-wreath in
a fairy dance.
When that was, the soft mist
Of my regret hung not on
all the land,
And I was glad for thee,
And glad for me, I wist.
Thou didst not know, who
tottered, wandering on high,
That fate had made thee for
the pleasure of the wind,
With those great careless
wings,
Nor yet did I.
And there were other things:
It seemed God let thee flutter
from his gentle clasp:
Then fearful he had let thee
win
Too far beyond him to be
gathered in,
Snatched thee, o’er
eager, with ungentle grasp.
Ah! I remember me
How once conspiracy was rife
Against my life—
The languor of it and the
dreaming fond;
Surging, the grasses dizzied
me of thought,
The breeze three odors brought,
And a gem-flower waved in
a wand!
Then when I was distraught
And could not speak,
Sidelong, full on my cheek,
What should that reckless
zephyr fling
But the wild touch of thy
dye-dusty wing!
I found that wing broken
to-day!
For thou are dead, I said,
And the strange birds say.
I found it with the withered
leaves
Under the eaves.
Reluctance
Out through the fields and
the woods
And over the walls I have
wended;
I have climbed the hills
of view
And looked at the world,
and descended;
I have come by the highway
home,
And lo, it is ended.
The leaves are all dead on
the ground,
Save those that the oak is
keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping
and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.
And the dead leaves lie huddled
and still,
No longer blown hither and
thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel
wither;
The heart is still aching
to seek,
But the feet question ‘Whither?’
Ah, when to the heart of
man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to
reason,
And bow and accept tand accept
the end
Of a love or a season?
