Chapter VIII

REVELATION STORM-FEAR BOND AND FREE FLOWER-GATHERING RELUCTANCE INTO MY OWN

SELECTED POEMS

THE PASTURE

I'm going out to clean the pasture spring; I'll only stop to rake the leaves away (And wait to watch the water clear, I may): I shan't be gone long.—-You come too.

I'm going out to fetch the little calf That's standing by the mother. It's so young, It totters when she licks it with her tongue. I shan't be gone long.—-You come too.

THE COW IN APPLE-TIME

Something inspires the only cow of late To 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 drools A cider syrup. Having tasted fruit, She scorns a pasture withering to the root. She runs from tree to tree where lie and sweeten The windfalls spiked with stubble and worm-eaten. She leaves them bitten when she has to fly. She bellows on a knoll against the sky. Her udder shrivels and the milk goes dry.

THE RUNAWAY

Once when the snow of the year was beginning to fall, We stopped by a mountain pasture to say "Whose colt?" A little Morgan had one forefoot on the wall, The other curled at his breast. He dipped his head And snorted at us. And then he had to bolt. We heard the miniature thunder where he fled, And we saw him, or thought we saw him, dim and grey, Like a shadow against the curtain of falling flakes. "I think the little fellow's afraid of the snow. He isn't winter-broken. It isn't play With the little fellow at all. He's running away. I doubt if even his mother could tell him, 'Sakes, It's only weather.' He'd think she didn't know! Where is his mother? He can't be out alone." And now he comes again with a clatter of stone And mounts the wall again with whited eyes And all his tail that isn't hair up straight. He shudders his coat as if to throw off flies. "Whoever it is that leaves him out so late, When other creatures have gone to stall and bin, Ought to be told to come and take him in."