My November Guest
My Sorrow, when she’s here with me, Thinks these dark days of autumn rain Are beautiful as days can be; She loves the bare, the withered tree; She walks the sodden pasture lane. Her
I. The Witch of Coös
I stayed the night for shelter at a farm Behind the mountains, with a mother and son, Two old-believers. They did all the talking. MOTHER: Folks think a witch who has familiar spirits She
Once By The Pacific
The shattered water made a misty din. Great waves looked over others coming in, And thought of doing something to the shore That water never did to land before. The clouds were low and
The Kitchen Chimney
Builder, in building the little house, In every way you may please yourself; But please please me in the kitchen chimney: Don’t build me a chimney upon a shelf. However far you must go
A Hillside Thaw
To think to know the country and now know The hillside on the day the sun lets go Ten million silver lizards out of snow! As often as I’ve seen it done before I
Gathering Leaves
Spades take up leaves No better than spoons, And bags full of leaves Are light as balloons. I make a great noise Of rustling all day Like rabbit and deer Running away. But the
A Dream Pang
I had withdrawn in forest, and my song Was swallowed up in leaves that blew alway; And to the forest edge you came one day (This was my dream) and looked and pondered long,
The Line-Gang
Here come the line-gang pioneering by, They throw a forest down less cut than broken. They plant dead trees for living, and the dead They string together with a living thread. They string an
Looking For a Sunset Bird in Winter
The west was getting out of gold, The breath of air had died of cold, When shoeing home across the white, I thought I saw a bird alight. In summer when I passed the
Neither Out Far Nor In Deep
The people along the sand All turn and look one way. They turn their back on the land. They look at the sea all day. As long as it takes to pass A ship
Rose Pogonias
A SATURATED meadow, Sun-shaped and jewel-small, A circle scarcely wider Than the trees around were tall; Where winds were quite excluded, And the air was stifling sweet With the breath of many flowers, A
The Mountain
The mountain held the town as in a shadow I saw so much before I slept there once: I noticed that I missed stars in the west, Where its black body cut into the
The Housekeeper
I let myself in at the kitchen door. “It’s you,” she said. “I can’t get up. Forgive me Not answering your knock. I can no more Let people in than I can keep them
The Peaceful Shepherd
If heaven were to do again, And on the pasture bars, I leaned to line the figures in Between the dotted starts, I should be tempted to forget, I fear, the Crown of Rule,
Birches
When I see birches bend to left and right Across the lines of straighter darker trees, I like to think some boy’s been swinging them. But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay. Ice-storms