I
Habberton’s plow!
John made it,
William stayed it,
Sharp the blade it bears till now!
Wind shadowed billows of rippling grass,
Under a sky as clear as glass.
And a road that wound like a crooked arm
Over a hill to Habberton’s Farm!
Two stone posts and a gate between,
A well sweep, dripping and cool and green.
And a girl who strained in the August sun
For the thud of hoofs where the path lay dun;
For a cloud that grew in a moment’s course
To the sweat and speed of a flying horse.
Though the dust lay white upon spur and shoe,
On the steaming flanks, and the trooper’s blue,
When the ride was done and the reins hung slack,
And he swung her up to the bay’s wet back
And kissed her brows in an arch of black!
Clung together, she heard him say,
“Three months more till our wedding day!
“Three months more and this purse’ll buy
The next two farms by the Mill Brook dry.
“And then long years of the kindly sun,
Children and work and the wild times done;
—And an end in peace that our hands have won.
“Here I’ll bide till the morning comes,
Then go back for the last of the drums.”
... The wind whined round them like a ghoul.
Into the doorway, still and cool,
They sank, a stone in a plumbless pool.