LONELINESS
How green and strange the light is,
Creeping through the window.
Lying alone in bed,
How strange the night is!
How still and chill the air is.
It seems no sound could live
Here in my room
That now so bare is.
All bright and still the room is,
But easeless here am I.
Deep in my heart
Cold lonely gloom is!
I HEARD A VOICE UPON THE WINDOW BEAT
I heard a voice upon the window beat
And then grow dim, grow still.
Opening I saw the snowy sill
Marked with the robin's feet.
Chill was the air and chill
The thoughts that in my bosom beat.
I thought of all that wide and hopeless snow
Crusting the frozen lands.
Of small birds that in famished bands
A-chill and silent grow.
And how Earth's myriad hands
Clutched only hills of frosted snow.
And then I thought of Love that beat and cried
Famishing at my breast;
How I, by chilling care distrest,
Denied him, and Love died....
O, with what sore unrest
Love's ghost woke with the bird that cried!