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 place I had to stop and lift my face; A bird with an angelic gift Was singing in it sweet and swift.

No bird was singing in it now. A single leaf was on a bough, And that was all there was to see In going twice around the tree.

From my advantage on a hill I judged that such a crystal chill Was only adding frost to snow As gilt to gold that wouldn’t show.

A brush had left a crooked stroke Of what was either cloud or smoke From north to south across the blue; A piercing little star was through.

A BOUNDLESS MOMENT

He halted in the wind, and—​what was that Far in the maples, pale, but not a ghost? He stood there bringing March against his thought, And yet too ready to believe the most.

"Oh, that’s the Paradise-in-bloom," I said; And truly it was fair enough for flowers Had we but in us to assume in March Such white luxuriance of May for ours.

We stood a moment so in a strange world, Myself as one his own pretense deceives; And then I said the truth (and we moved on): A young beech clinging to its last year’s leaves.

EVENING IN A SUGAR ORCHARD

From where I lingered in a lull in March Outside the sugar-house one night for choice, I called the fireman with a careful voice And bade him leave the pan and stoke the arch: "O fireman, give the fire another stoke, And send more sparks up chimney with the smoke." I thought a few might tangle, as they did, Among bare maple boughs, and in the rare Hill atmosphere not cease to glow, And so be added to the moon up there. The moon, though slight, was moon enough to show On every tree a bucket with a lid, And on black ground a bear-skin rug of snow. The sparks made no attempt to be the moon. They were content to figure in the trees As Leo, Orion, and the Pleiades. And that was what the boughs were full of soon.

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 mountains I raise Elude my embrace, Flowing over my arms And into my face.

I may load and unload Again and again Till I fill the whole shed, And what have I then?

Next to nothing for weight; And since they grew duller From contact with earth, Next to nothing for color.

Next to nothing for use. But a crop is a crop, And who’s to say where The harvest shall stop?

THE VALLEY’S SINGING DAY

The sound of the closing outside door was all. You made no sound in the grass with your footfall, As far as you went from the door, which was not far; But you had awakened under the morning star The first song-bird that awakened all the rest. He could have slept but a moment more at best. Already determined dawn began to lay In place across a cloud the slender ray For prying beneath and forcing the lids of sight, And loosing the pent-up music of over-night. But dawn was not to begin their "pearly-pearly" (By which they mean the rain is pearls so early, Before it changes to diamonds in the sun), Neither was song that day to be self-begun. You had begun it, and if there needed proof-- I was asleep still under the dripping roof, My window curtain hung over the sill to wet; But I should awake to confirm your story yet; I should be willing to say and help you say That once you had opened the valley’s singing day.

MISGIVING

All crying "We will go with you, O Wind!" The foliage follow him, leaf and stem; But a sleep oppresses them as they go, And they end by bidding him stay with them.

Since ever they flung abroad in spring The leaves had promised themselves this flight, Who now would fain seek sheltering wall, Or thicket, or hollow place for the night.

And now they answer his summoning blast With an ever vaguer and vaguer stir, Or at utmost a little reluctant whirl That drops them no further than where they were.

I only hope that when I am free As they are free to go in quest Of the knowledge beyond the bounds of life It may not seem better to me to rest.