The Wood-pile
Out walking in the frozen
swamp one grey day
I paused and said, “I
will turn back from here.
No, I will go on farther—and
we shall see.”
The hard snow held me, save
where now and then
One foot went down. The
view was all in lines
Straight up and down of tall
slim trees
Too much alike to mark or
name a place by
So as to say for certain I
was here
Or somewhere else: I
was just far from home.
A small bird flew before me.
He was careful
To put a tree between us when
he lighted,
And say no word to tell me
who he was
Who was so foolish as to think
what he thought.
He thought that I was after
him for a feather—
The white one in his tail;
like one who takes
Everything said as personal
to himself.
One flight out sideways would
have undeceived him.
And then there was a pile
of wood for which
I forgot him and let his little
fear
Carry him off the way I might
have gone,
Without so much as wishing
him good-night.
He went behind it to make
his last stand.
It was a cord of maple, cut
and split
And piled—and measured,
four by four by eight.
And not another like it could
I see.
No runner tracks in this year’s
snow looped near it.
And it was older sure than
this year’s cutting,
Or even last year’s
or the year’s before.
The wood was grey and the
bark warping off it
And the pile somewhat sunken.
Clematis
Had wound strings round and
round it like a bundle.
What held it though on one
side was a tree
Still growing, and on one
a stake and prop,
These latter about to fall.
I thought that only
Someone who lived in turning
to fresh tasks
Could so forget his handiwork
on which
He spent himself, the labour
of his axe,
And leave it there far from
a useful fireplace
To warm the frozen swamp as
best it could
With the slow smokeless burning
of decay.
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