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LONELINESS (Her Word) ONE ought not to have to care | |
So much as you and I | |
Care when the birds come round the house | |
To seem to say good-bye; | |
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Or care so much when they come back | 5 |
With whatever it is they sing; | |
The truth being we are as much | |
Too glad for the one thing | |
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As we are too sad for the other here | |
With birds that fill their breasts | 10 |
But with each other and themselves | |
And their built or driven nests. | |
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HOUSE FEAR AlwaysI tell you this they learned | |
Always at night when they returned | |
To the lonely house from far away | 15 |
To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray, | |
They learned to rattle the lock and key | |
To give whatever might chance to be | |
Warning and time to be off in flight: | |
And preferring the out- to the in-door night, | 20 |
They learned to leave the house-door wide | |
Until they had lit the lamp inside. | |
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THE SMILE (Her Word) I didnt like the way he went away. | |
That smile! It never came of being gay. | |
Still he smileddid you see him?I was sure! | 25 |
Perhaps because we gave him only bread | |
And the wretch knew from that that we were poor. | |
Perhaps because he let us give instead | |
Of seizing from us as he might have seized. | |
Perhaps he mocked at us for being wed, | 30 |
Or being very young (and he was pleased | |
To have a vision of us old and dead). | |
I wonder how far down the road hes got. | |
Hes watching from the woods as like as not. | |
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THE OFT-REPEATED DREAM She had no saying dark enough | 35 |
For the dark pine that kept | |
Forever trying the window-latch | |
Of the room where they slept. | |
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The tireless but ineffectual hands | |
That with every futile pass | 40 |
Made the great tree seem as a little bird | |
Before the mystery of glass! | |
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It never had been inside the room, | |
And only one of the two | |
Was afraid in an oft-repeated dream | 45 |
Of what the tree might do. | |
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THE IMPULSE It was too lonely for her there, | |
And too wild, | |
And since there were but two of them, | |
And no child, | 50 |
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And work was little in the house, | |
She was free, | |
And followed where he furrowed field, | |
Or felled tree. | |
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She rested on a log and tossed | 55 |
The fresh chips, | |
With a song only to herself | |
On her lips. | |
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And once she went to break a bough | |
Of black alder. | 60 |
She strayed so far she scarcely heard | |
When he called her | |
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And didnt answerdidnt speak | |
Or return. | |
She stood, and then she ran and hid | 65 |
In the fern. | |
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He never found her, though he looked | |
Everywhere, | |
And he asked at her mothers house | |
Was she there. | 70 |
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Sudden and swift and light as that | |
The ties gave, | |
And he learned of finalities | |
Besides the grave. | |
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