Amid such snows, by generations haunted,
By echoes, memories and dreams enchanted,
Firm when dark winds through the night stamp and shout,
Brightest when time silvers the world all about,
That old house called The Heart burns, burns, and still
Outbraves the mortal threat of the hanging hill.

THE BEAM

The dead white on the fields’ dead white
Turned the peace to misery. 
Tall bony trees their wild arms thrust
Into the cold breast of the night. 
Brightly the stars shone in their dust. 
The hard wind’s gust
Scratched like a bird the frozen snow.

Against the dead light grew the gold,
Lifting its beam to that high dust;
The lamp within the hut’s small pane
Called the world to life again. 
Arms of the trees atremble thrust
Defiance at the cold
Night of narrow shrouding snow.

A human beam, small spear of light,
Lifting its beauty to that high
Indifference of starry dust. 
The aching trees were comforted,
And their brave arms more deeply thrust
Into the sky. 
Earth’s warm light fingered the dead snow.

LAST HOURS

A gray day and quiet,
With slow clouds of gray,
And in dull air a cloud that falls, falls
All day.

The naked and stiff branches
Of oak, elm, thorn,
In the cold light are like men aged and
Forlorn.

Only a gray sky,
Grass, trees, grass again,
And all the air a cloud that drips, drips,
All day.

Lovely the lonely
Bare trees and green grass—­
Lovelier now the last hours of slow winter
Slowly pass.

THE WISH

That you might happier be than all the rest,
Than I who have been happy loving you,
Of all the innocent even the happiest—­
This I beseeched for you.

Until I thought of those unending skies—­
Of stagnant cloud, or fleckless dull blue air,
Of days and nights delightless, no surprise,
No threat, no sting, no fear;

And of the stirless waters of the mind,
Waveless, unfurrowed, of no living hue,
With dead eaves dropping slowly in no wind,
And nothing flowering new.

And then no more I wished you happiness,
But that whatever fell of joy or woe
I would not dare, O Sweet, to wish it less,
Or wish you less than you.

NOWHERE, EVERYWHERE

Flesh and blood, bone and skin,
Are the house that beauty lives in. 
Formed in darkness, grown in light
Are they the substance of delight. 
Who could have dreamed the things he sees
In these strong lovely presences—­
In cheeks of children, thews of men,
Women’s bodies beloved of men? 
Who could have dreamed a thing so wise
As that clear look of the child’s eyes?