A HILLSIDE THAW

To think to know the country and not 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 can’t pretend to tell the way it’s done. It looks as if some magic of the sun Lifted the rug that bred them on the floor And the light breaking on them made them run. But if I thought to stop the wet stampede, And caught one silver lizard by the tail, And put my foot on one without avail, And threw myself wet-elbowed and wet-kneed In front of twenty others' wriggling speed,-- In the confusion of them all aglitter, And birds that joined in the excited fun By doubling and redoubling song and twitter, I have no doubt I’d end by holding none.

It takes the moon for this. The sun’s a wizard By all I tell; but so’s the moon a witch. From the high west she makes a gentle cast And suddenly, without a jerk or twitch, She has her spell on every single lizard. I fancied when I looked at six o’clock The swarm still ran and scuttled just as fast. The moon was waiting for her chill effect. I looked at nine: the swarm was turned to rock In every lifelike posture of the swarm, Transfixed on mountain slopes almost erect. Across each other and side by side they lay. The spell that so could hold them as they were Was wrought through trees without a breath of storm To make a leaf, if there had been one, stir. It was the moon’s: she held them until day, One lizard at the end of every ray. The thought of my attempting such a stay!

PLOWMEN

A plow, they say, to plow the snow. They cannot mean to plant it, though-- Unless in bitterness to mock At having cultivated rock.

ON A TREE FALLEN ACROSS THE ROAD (To hear us talk)

The tree the tempest with a crash of wood Throws down in front of us is not to bar Our passage to our journey’s end for good, But just to ask us who we think we are

Insisting always on our own way so. She likes to halt us in our runner tracks, And make us get down in a foot of snow Debating what to do without an axe.

And yet she knows obstruction is in vain: We will not be put off the final goal We have it hidden in us to attain, Not though we have to seize earth by the pole

And, tired of aimless circling in one place, Steer straight off after something into space.

OUR SINGING STRENGTH

It snowed in spring on earth so dry and warm The flakes could find no landing place to form. Hordes spent themselves to make it wet and cold, And still they failed of any lasting hold. They made no white impression on the black. They disappeared as if earth sent them back. Not till from separate flakes they changed at night To almost strips and tapes of ragged white Did grass and garden ground confess it snowed, And all go back to winter but the road. Next day the scene was piled and puffed and dead. The grass lay flattened under one great tread. Borne down until the end almost took root, The rangey bough anticipated fruit With snowballs cupped in every opening bud. The road alone maintained itself in mud, Whatever its secret was of greater heat From inward fires or brush of passing feet.

In spring more mortal singers than belong To any one place cover us with song. Thrush, bluebird, blackbird, sparrow, and robin throng; Some to go further north to Hudson’s Bay, Some that have come too far north back away, Really a very few to build and stay. Now was seen how these liked belated snow. The fields had nowhere left for them to go; They’d soon exhausted all there was in flying; The trees they’d had enough of with once trying And setting off their heavy powder load. They could find nothing open but the road. So there they let their lives be narrowed in By thousands the bad weather made akin. The road became a channel running flocks Of glossy birds like ripples over rocks. I drove them under foot in bits of flight That kept the ground, almost disputing right Of way with me from apathy of wing, A talking twitter all they had to sing. A few I must have driven to despair Made quick asides, but having done in air A whir among white branches great and small As in some too much carven marble hall Where one false wing beat would have brought down all, Came tamely back in front of me, the Drover, To suffer the same driven nightmare over. One such storm in a lifetime couldn’t teach them That back behind pursuit it couldn’t reach them; None flew behind me to be left alone.

Well, something for a snowstorm to have shown The country’s singing strength thus brought together, That though repressed and moody with the weather Was none the less there ready to be freed And sing the wildflowers up from root and seed.

THE LOCKLESS DOOR

It went many years, But at last came a knock, And I thought of the door With no lock to lock.

I blew out the light, I tip-toed the floor, And raised both hands In prayer to the door.

But the knock came again. My window was wide; I climbed on the sill And descended outside.

Back over the sill I bade a "Come in" To whatever the knock At the door may have been.

So at a knock I emptied my cage To hide in the world And alter with age.

THE NEED OF BEING VERSED IN COUNTRY THINGS

The house had gone to bring again To the midnight sky a sunset glow. Now the chimney was all of the house that stood, Like a pistil after the petals go.

The barn opposed across the way, That would have joined the house in flame Had it been the will of the wind, was left To bear forsaken the place’s name.

No more it opened with all one end For teams that came by the stony road To drum on the floor with scurrying hoofs And brush the mow with the summer load.

The birds that came to it through the air At broken windows flew out and in, Their murmur more like the sigh we sigh From too much dwelling on what has been.