| “When I was just as far as I could walk From here to-day, There was an hour All still When leaning with my head against a flower I heard you talk. Don’t say I didn’t, for I heard you say–– You spoke from that flower on the window sill–– Do you remember what it was you said?” “First tell me what it was you thought you heard.” “Having found the flower and driven a bee away, I leaned my head, And holding by the stalk, I listened and I thought I caught the word–– What was it? Did you call me by my name? Or did you say–– Someone said ‘Come’––I heard it as I bowed.” “I may have thought as much, but not aloud.” “Well, so I came.” |
MEETING AND PASSING
| As I went down the hill along the wall There was a gate I had leaned at for the view And had just turned from when I first saw you As you came up the hill. We met. But all We did that day was mingle great and small Footprints in summer dust as if we drew The figure of our being less than two But more than one as yet. Your parasol Pointed the decimal off with one deep thrust. And all the time we talked you seemed to see Something down there to smile at in the dust. (Oh, it was without prejudice to me!) Afterward I went past what you had passed Before we met and you what I had passed. |
HYLA BROOK
| By June our brook’s run out of song and speed. Sought for much after that, it will be found Either to have gone groping underground (And taken with it all the Hyla breed That shouted in the mist a month ago, Like ghost of sleigh-bells in a ghost of snow)–– Or flourished and come up in jewel-weed, Weak foliage that is blown upon and bent Even against the way its waters went. Its bed is left a faded paper sheet Of dead leaves stuck together by the heat–– A brook to none but who remember long. This as it will be seen is other far Than with brooks taken otherwhere in song. We love the things we love for what they are. |