Lovers, forget your love,
And list to the love of these,
She a flower,
And he a winter breeze.

When the frosty veil
Was melted down at noon,
And the caged yellow bird
Hung over her in tune,

He marked her through the pane,
He could not help but mark,
And only passed her by
To come again at dark.

He was a winter ,
Concerned with ice and snow,
Dead weeds and unmated birds,
And little of love could know.

But he sighed upon the sill,
He gave the sash a shake,
As witness all within
Who lay that awake.

Perchance he half prevailed
To win her for the flight
From the firelit looking-glass
And warm stove- .

But the flower leaned aside
And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
A hundred miles away.

Love and a Question

A stranger came to the door at eve,
And he spoke the fair.
He bore a green-white stick,
And, for all burden, care.
He asked with the more than the lips
For a shelter for the ,
And he turned and looked at the road afar
Without a .

The came forth into the porch
With, "Let us look at the sky,
And question what of the to be,
Stranger, you and I."
The woodbine littered the yard,
The woodbine berries were blue,
Autumn, yes, winter was in the ;
"Stranger, I wish I knew."

Within, the bride in the dusk
Bent over the open ,
Her face rose-red with the glowing coal
And the thought of the 's desire.
The looked at the weary road,
Yet saw but her within,
And wished her in a case of gold
And pinned with a silver pin.

The thought it little to give
A dole of bread, a purse,
A heartfelt prayer for the poor of God,
Or for the rich a curse;
But whether or not a man was asked
To mar the love of two
by harboring woe in the bridal house,
The wished he knew.

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 , and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The 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 lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch hazel wither;
The is still aching to seek,
But the feet question "Whither?"

Ah, when to the 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 the end
Of a love or a season?

To Earthward

Love at the lips was touch
As sweet as I could bear;
And once that seemed too much;
I lived on air

That crossed me from sweet things,
The flow of - was it musk
From hidden grapevine springs
Down hill at dusk?

I had the swirl and ache
From sprays of honeysuckle
That when they're gathered shake
Dew on the knuckle.

I craved strong sweets, but those
Seemed strong when I was young;
The petal of the rose
It was that stung.

Now no joy but lacks salt
That is not dashed with pain
And weariness and fault;
I crave the stain

Of tears, the aftermark
Of almost too much love,
The sweet of bitter bark
And burning clove.

When stiff and sore and scarred
I take away
From leaning on it hard
In grass and sand,

The hurt is not enough:
I long for weight and strength
To feel the earth as rough
To all my length.

Fire and Ice

Some say the will end in ,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor .
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

Lodged

The rain to the said,
"You push and I'll pelt."
They so smote the garden bed
That the flowers actually knelt,
And lay lodged -- not dead.
I know how the flowers felt.

Bereft

Where had I heard this before
Change like this to a deeper roar?
What would it take my standing there for,
Holding open a restive door,
Looking downhill to a frothy shore?
Summer was past and day was past.
Somber clouds in the west were massed.
Out in the porch's sagging floor
Leaves got up in a coil and hissed,
Blindly struck at my knee and missed.
Something sinister in the tone
Told me my secret must be known:
Word I was in the house
Somehow must have gotten abroad,
Word I was in my ,
Word I had no one left but God.