There’s a patch of old snow in a cornerThat I should have guessedWas a blow-away paper the rainHad brought to rest. It is speckled with grime as ifSmall print overspread it,The news of a day I’ve forgotten–If I ever read it.

All out of doors looked darkly in at himThrough the thin frost, almost in separate stars,That gathers on the pane in empty rooms.What kept his eyes from giving back the gazeWas the lamp tilted near them in his hand.What kept him from remembering what it wasThat brought him to that creaking room was age.He stood […]

(A Christmas Circular Letter) The city had withdrawn into itselfAnd left at last the country to the country;When between whirls of snow not come to lieAnd whirls of foliage not yet laid, there droveA stranger to our yard, who looked the city,Yet did in country fashion in that thereHe sat and waited till he drew […]

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,And sorry I could not travel bothAnd be one traveler, long I stoodAnd looked down one as far as I couldTo where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair,And having perhaps the better claim,Because it was grassy and wanted wear;Though as for that […]

There is a singer everyone has heard,Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.He says that leaves are old and that for flowersMid-summer is to spring as one to ten.He says the early petal-fall is pastWhen pear and cherry bloom went down in showersOn sunny days a moment overcast;And […]

By June our brook’s run out of song and speed.Sought for much after that, it will be foundEither to have gone groping underground(And taken with it all the Hyla breedThat shouted in the mist a month ago,Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow)–Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed,Weak foliage that is blown […]

As I went down the hill along the wallThere was a gate I had leaned at for the viewAnd had just turned from when I first saw youAs you came up the hill. We met. But allWe did that day was mingle great and smallFootprints in summer dust as if we drewThe figure of our […]

“When I was just as far as I could walkFrom here to-day,There was an hourAll stillWhen leaning with my head against a flowerI heard you talk.Don’t say I didn’t, for I heard you say–You spoke from that flower on the window sill–Do you remember what it was you said?” “First tell me what it was […]

She stood against the kitchen sink, and lookedOver the sink out through a dusty windowAt weeds the water from the sink made tall.She wore her cape; her hat was in her hand.Behind her was confusion in the room,Of chairs turned upside down to sit like peopleIn other chairs, and something, come to look,For every room […]

When a friend calls to me from the roadAnd slows his horse to a meaning walk,I don’t stand still and look aroundOn all the hills I haven’t hoed,And shout from where I am, What is it?No, not as there is a time to talk.I thrust my hoe in the mellow ground,Blade-end up and five feet […]

You come to fetch me from my work to-nightWhen supper’s on the table, and we’ll seeIf I can leave off burying the whiteSoft petals fallen from the apple tree.(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)And go along with you ere you lose sightOf what you came for […]

I walked down alone Sunday after churchTo the place where John has been cutting treesTo see for myself about the birchHe said I could have to bush my peas. The sun in the new-cut narrow gapWas hot enough for the first of May,And stifling hot with the odor of sapFrom stumps still bleeding their life […]

When I see birches bend to left and rightAcross 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 do that. Often you must have seen themLoaded with ice a sunny winter morningAfter a rain. They click upon themselvesAs the breeze rises, and turn […]

Love has earth to which she clingsWith hills and circling arms about–Wall within wall to shut fear out.But Thought has need of no such things,For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings. On snow and sand and turf, I seeWhere Love has left a printed traceWith straining in the world’s embrace.And such is Love and […]

(Her Word) I didn’t like the way he went away.That smile! It never came of being gay.Still he smiled–did you see him?–I was sure!Perhaps because we gave him only breadAnd the wretch knew from that that we were poor.Perhaps because he let us give insteadOf seizing from us as he might have seized.Perhaps he mocked […]

Always–I tell you this they learned–Always at night when they returnedTo the lonely house from far awayTo lamps unlighted and fire gone gray,They learned to rattle the lock and keyTo give whatever might chance to beWarning and time to be off in flight:And preferring the out- to the in-door night,They learned to leave the house-door […]

LONELINESS (Her Word) One ought not to have to careSo much as you and ICare when the birds come round the houseTo seem to say good-bye; Or care so much when they come backWith whatever it is they sing;The truth being we are as muchToo glad for the one thing As we are too sad […]

The battle rent a cobweb diamond-strungAnd cut a flower beside a ground bird’s nestBefore it stained a single human breast.The stricken flower bent double and so hung.And still the bird revisited her young.A butterfly its fall had dispossessedA moment sought in air his flower of rest,Then lightly stooped to it and fluttering clung. On the […]

Something inspires the only cow of lateTo make no more of a wall than an open gate,And think no more of wall-builders than fools.Her face is flecked with pomace and she droolsA cider syrup. Having tasted fruit,She scorns a pasture withering to the root.She runs from tree to tree where lie and sweetenThe windfalls spiked […]

You were forever finding some new play.So when I saw you down on hands and kneesIn the meadow, busy with the new-cut hay,Trying, I thought, to set it up on end,I went to show you how to make it stay,If that was your idea, against the breeze,And, if you asked me, even help pretendTo make […]