Since Then.
I found myself among the trees
What time the reapers ceased to reap;
And in the berry blooms the bees
Huddled wee heads and went to sleep,
Rocked by the silence and the breeze.
I saw the red fox leave his lair,
A shaggy shadow, on the knoll;
And, tunnelling his thoroughfare
Beneath the loam, I watched the mole—
Stealth's own self could not take more care.
I heard the death-moth tick and stir,
Slow-honeycombing through the bark;
I heard the crickets' drowsy chirr,
And one lone beetle burr the dark—
The sleeping woodland seemed to purr.
And then the moon rose; and a white
Low bough of blossoms—grown almost
Where, ere you died, 'twas our delight
To tryst,—dear heart!—I thought your ghost....
The wood is haunted since that night.
Comrades.
Down through the woods, along the way
That fords the stream; by rock and tree,
Where in the bramble-bell the bee
Swings; and through twilights green and gray
The red-bird flashes suddenly,
My thoughts went wandering to-day.
I found the fields where, row on row,
The blackberries hang black with fruit;
Where, nesting at the elder's root,
The partridge whistles soft and low;
The fields, that billow to the foot
Of those old hills we used to know.