<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0024" id="link2H_4_0024"></SPAN></p>
<h2> Spoils of the Dead </h2>
<p>TWO fairies it was<br/>
On a still summer day<br/>
Came forth in the woods<br/>
With the flowers to play.<br/>
The flowers they plucked<br/>
They cast on the ground<br/>
For others, and those<br/>
For still others they found.<br/>
Flower-guided it was<br/>
That they came as they ran<br/>
On something that lay<br/>
In the shape of a man.<br/>
The snow must have made<br/>
The feathery bed<br/>
When this one fell<br/>
On the sleep of the dead.<br/>
But the snow was gone<br/>
A long time ago,<br/>
And the body he wore<br/>
Nigh gone with the snow.<br/>
The fairies drew near<br/>
And keenly espied<br/>
A ring on his hand<br/>
And a chain at his side.<br/>
They knelt in the leaves<br/>
And eerily played<br/>
With the glittering things,<br/>
And were not afraid.<br/>
And when they went home<br/>
To hide in their burrow,<br/>
They took them along<br/>
To play with to-morrow.<br/>
When you came on death,<br/>
Did you not come flower-guided<br/>
Like the elves in the wood?<br/>
I remember that I did.<br/>
But I recognised death<br/>
With sorrow and dread,<br/>
And I hated and hate<br/>
The spoils of the dead.<br/></p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0025" id="link2H_4_0025"></SPAN></p>
<h2> Pan with Us </h2>
<p>PAN came out of the woods one day,—<br/>
His skin and his hair and his eyes were gray,<br/>
The gray of the moss of walls were they,—<br/>
And stood in the sun and looked his fill<br/>
At wooded valley and wooded hill.<br/>
He stood in the zephyr, pipes in hand,<br/>
On a height of naked pasture land;<br/>
In all the country he did command<br/>
He saw no smoke and he saw no roof.<br/>
That was well! and he stamped a hoof.<br/>
His heart knew peace, for none came here<br/>
To this lean feeding save once a year<br/>
Someone to salt the half-wild steer,<br/>
Or homespun children with clicking pails<br/>
Who see no little they tell no tales.<br/>
He tossed his pipes, too hard to teach<br/>
A new-world song, far out of reach,<br/>
For a sylvan sign that the blue jay's screech<br/>
And the whimper of hawks beside the sun<br/>
Were music enough for him, for one.<br/>
Times were changed from what they were:<br/>
Such pipes kept less of power to stir<br/>
The fruited bough of the juniper<br/>
And the fragile bluets clustered there<br/>
Than the merest aimless breath of air.<br/>
They were pipes of pagan mirth,<br/>
And the world had found new terms of worth.<br/>
He laid him down on the sun-burned earth<br/>
And ravelled a flower and looked away—<br/>
Play? Play?—What should he play?<br/></p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0026" id="link2H_4_0026"></SPAN></p>
<h2> The Demiurge's Laugh </h2>
<p>IT was far in the sameness of the wood;<br/>
I was running with joy on the Demon's trail,<br/>
Though I knew what I hunted was no true god.<br/>
It was just as the light was beginning to fail<br/>
That I suddenly heard—all I needed to hear:<br/>
It has lasted me many and many a year.<br/>
The sound was behind me instead of before,<br/>
A sleepy sound, but mocking half,<br/>
As of one who utterly couldn't care.<br/>
The Demon arose from his wallow to laugh,<br/>
Brushing the dirt from his eye as he went;<br/>
And well I knew what the Demon meant.<br/>
I shall not forget how his laugh rang out.<br/>
I felt as a fool to have been so caught,<br/>
And checked my steps to make pretence<br/>
It was something among the leaves I sought<br/>
(Though doubtful whether he stayed to see).<br/>
Thereafter I sat me against a tree.<br/></p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0027" id="link2H_4_0027"></SPAN></p>
<h2> Now Close the Windows </h2>
<p>NOW close the windows and hush all the fields;<br/>
If the trees must, let them silently toss;<br/>
No bird is singing now, and if there is,<br/>
Be it my loss.<br/>
It will be long ere the marshes resume,<br/>
It will be long ere the earliest bird:<br/>
So close the windows and not hear the wind,<br/>
But see all wind-stirred.<br/></p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0028" id="link2H_4_0028"></SPAN></p>
<h2> A Line-storm Song </h2>
<p>THE line-storm clouds fly tattered and swift,<br/>
The road is forlorn all day,<br/>
Where a myriad snowy quartz stones lift,<br/>
And the hoof-prints vanish away.<br/>
The roadside flowers, too wet for the bee,<br/>
Expend their bloom in vain.<br/>
Come over the hills and far with me,<br/>
And be my love in the rain.<br/>
The birds have less to say for themselves<br/>
In the wood-world's torn despair<br/>
Than now these numberless years the elves,<br/>
Although they are no less there:<br/>
All song of the woods is crushed like some<br/>
Wild, easily shattered rose.<br/>
Come, be my love in the wet woods; come,<br/>
Where the boughs rain when it blows.<br/>
There is the gale to urge behind<br/>
And bruit our singing down,<br/>
And the shallow waters aflutter with wind<br/>
From which to gather your gown.<br/>
What matter if we go clear to the west,<br/>
And come not through dry-shod?<br/>
For wilding brooch shall wet your breast<br/>
The rain-fresh goldenrod.<br/>
Oh, never this whelming east wind swells<br/>
But it seems like the sea's return<br/>
To the ancient lands where it left the shells<br/>
Before the age of the fern;<br/>
And it seems like the time when after doubt<br/>
Our love came back amain.<br/>
Oh, come forth into the storm and rout<br/>
And be my love in the rain.<br/></p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0029" id="link2H_4_0029"></SPAN></p>
<h2> October </h2>
<p>O HUSHED October morning mild,<br/>
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;<br/>
To-morrow's wind, if it be wild,<br/>
Should waste them all.<br/>
The crows above the forest call;<br/>
To-morrow they may form and go.<br/>
O hushed October morning mild,<br/>
Begin the hours of this day slow,<br/>
Make the day seem to us less brief.<br/>
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,<br/>
Beguile us in the way you know;<br/>
Release one leaf at break of day;<br/>
At noon release another leaf;<br/>
One from our trees, one far away;<br/>
Retard the sun with gentle mist;<br/>
Enchant the land with amethyst.<br/>
Slow, slow!<br/>
For the grapes' sake, if they were all,<br/>
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,<br/>
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—<br/>
For the grapes' sake along the wall.<br/></p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0030" id="link2H_4_0030"></SPAN></p>
<h2> My Butterfly </h2>
<p>THINE emulous fond flowers are dead, too,<br/>
And the daft sun-assaulter, he<br/>
That frighted thee so oft, is fled or dead:<br/>
Save only me<br/>
(Nor is it sad to thee!)<br/>
Save only me<br/>
There is none left to mourn thee in the fields.<br/>
The gray grass is not dappled with the snow;<br/>
Its two banks have not shut upon the river;<br/>
But it is long ago—<br/>
It seems forever—<br/>
Since first I saw thee glance,<br/>
With all the dazzling other ones,<br/>
In airy dalliance,<br/>
Precipitate in love,<br/>
Tossed, tangled, whirled and whirled above,<br/>
Like a limp rose-wreath in a fairy dance.<br/>
When that was, the soft mist<br/>
Of my regret hung not on all the land,<br/>
And I was glad for thee,<br/>
And glad for me, I wist.<br/>
Thou didst not know, who tottered, wandering on high,<br/>
That fate had made thee for the pleasure of the wind,<br/>
With those great careless wings,<br/>
Nor yet did I.<br/>
And there were other things:<br/>
It seemed God let thee flutter from his gentle clasp:<br/>
Then fearful he had let thee win<br/>
Too far beyond him to be gathered in,<br/>
Snatched thee, o'er eager, with ungentle grasp.<br/>
Ah! I remember me<br/>
How once conspiracy was rife<br/>
Against my life—<br/>
The languor of it and the dreaming fond;<br/>
Surging, the grasses dizzied me of thought,<br/>
The breeze three odors brought,<br/>
And a gem-flower waved in a wand!<br/>
Then when I was distraught<br/>
And could not speak,<br/>
Sidelong, full on my cheek,<br/>
What should that reckless zephyr fling<br/>
But the wild touch of thy dye-dusty wing!<br/>
I found that wing broken to-day!<br/>
For thou are dead, I said,<br/>
And the strange birds say.<br/>
I found it with the withered leaves<br/>
Under the eaves.<br/></p>
<p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0031" id="link2H_4_0031"></SPAN></p>
<h2> Reluctance </h2>
<p>OUT through the fields and the woods<br/>
And over the walls I have wended;<br/>
I have climbed the hills of view<br/>
And looked at the world, and descended;<br/>
I have come by the highway home,<br/>
And lo, it is ended.<br/>
The leaves are all dead on the ground,<br/>
Save those that the oak is keeping<br/>
To ravel them one by one<br/>
And let them go scraping and creeping<br/>
Out over the crusted snow,<br/>
When others are sleeping.<br/>
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,<br/>
No longer blown hither and thither;<br/>
The last lone aster is gone;<br/>
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;<br/>
The heart is still aching to seek,<br/>
But the feet question 'Whither?'<br/>
Ah, when to the heart of man<br/>
Was it ever less than a treason<br/>
To go with the drift of things,<br/>
To yield with a grace to reason,<br/>
And bow and accept and accept the end<br/>
Of a love or a season?<br/></p>
<p><br/><br/><br/><br/></p>
<SPAN name="endofbook"></SPAN>
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