But day shows it vivid with feelingAnd the pallor of night does not tally
With dark sleep that once covered its ceiling.
My little red heifer, to-night I looked in her eyes,
—She will calve to-morrow:
Last night when I went with the lantern, the sow was grabbing her litter
With red, snarling jaws: and I heard the cries
Of the new-born, and after that, the old owl, then the bats that flitter.
And I woke to the sound of the wood-pigeons, and lay and listened,
Till I could borrow
A few quick beats of a wood-pigeon’s heart, and when I did rise
The morning sun on the shaken iris glistened,
And I saw that home, this valley, was wider than Paradise.
I learned it all from my Eve
This warm, dumb wisdom.
She’s a finer instructress than years;
She has taught my heart-strings to weave
Through the web of all laughter and tears.
And now I see the valley
Fleshed all like me
With feelings that change and quiver:
And all things seem to tally
With something in me,
Something of which she’s the giver.
Dog-tired
If she would come to me here,
Now the sunken swaths
Are glittering paths
To the sun, and the swallows cut clear
Into the low sun—if she came to me here!
If she would come to me now,
Before the last mown harebells are dead,
While that vetch clump yet burns red;
Before all the bats have dropped from the bough
Into the cool of night—if she came to me now!
The horses are untackled, the chattering machine
Is still at last. If she would come,
I would gather up the warm hay from
The hill-brow, and lie in her lap till the green
Sky ceased to quiver, and lost its tired sheen.
I should like to drop
On the hay, with my head on her knee
And lie stone still, while she
Breathed quiet above me—we could stop
Till the stars came out to see.
I should like to lie still
As if I was dead—but feeling
Her hand go stealing
Over my face and my hair until
This ache was shed.
Michael-angelo
God shook thy roundness in His finger’s cup,
He sunk His hands in firmness down thy sides,
And drew the circle of His grasp, O Man,
Along thy limbs delighted, thine, His bride’s.
And so thou wert God-shapen: His finger
Curved thy mouth for thee, and His strong shoulder
Planted thee upright: art not proud to see
In the curve of thine exquisite form the joy of the Moulder?
He took a handful of light and rolled a ball,
Compressed it till its beam grew wondrous dark,
Then gave thee thy dark eyes, O Man, that all
He made had doorway to thee through that spark.
God, lonely, put down His mouth in a kiss of creation,
He kissed thee, O Man, in a passion of love, and left
The vivid life of His love in thy mouth and thy nostrils;
Keep then the kiss from the adultress’ theft.
Violets
Sister, tha knows while we was on the planks
Aside o’ th’ grave, while th’ coffin wor lyin’ yet
On th’ yaller clay, an’ th’ white flowers top of it
Tryin’ to keep off ’n him a bit o’ th’ wet,
An’ parson makin’ haste, an’ a’ the black
Huddlin’ close together a cause o’ th’ rain,
Did t’ ’appen ter notice a bit of a lass away back
By a head-stun, sobbin’ an’ sobbin’ again?
—How should I be lookin’ round
An’ me standin’ on the plank
Beside the open ground,
Where our Ted ’ud soon be sank?
Yi, an’ ’im that young,
Snapped sudden out of all
His wickedness, among
Pals worse n’r ony name as you could call.
Let
