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I BEFORE the snow had melted from north slopes | |
| John Mortimer could feel the coming spring. | |
| The imp that stirs the sleeping roots of trees, | |
| And sends the sap up to the highest twigs, | |
| Was in his blood. He envied the gaudy rooster | 5 |
| Who from his throne upon the leaning gate | |
| Shouted his challenge through the morning air | |
| Across the sleeping fields where snowdrifts lay. | |
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| One morning, going townward with the milk, | |
| He offered Mary Allindale a ride. | 10 |
| Her father was a queer old man who worked | |
| A little farm, and sometimes played his fiddle | |
| Half the night after his work was done. | |
| She taught the village school. John never knew | |
| How pretty Mary was until that day. | 15 |
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| Dusky horizons, deep blue skies where clouds | |
| Float slowly, in the distance three black specks— | |
| They must be horses and a man plodding | |
| Along the boundary line between the gray | |
| Of last year’s life and the black earth new-plowed. | 20 |
| Resting upon a bed of last year’s leaves, | |
| At noon John Mortimer could see tall ranks | |
| Of ripening corn; he dreamed of growing stock | |
| And bigger barns, and Mary Allindale. | |
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| The evening wind blew sweet across the fields | 25 |
| Of clover when at last he went to her. | |
| It brought them tell-tale odors of the farms | |
| They passed, the faint warm smell of growing corn, | |
| The cool and heavy incense of the stream | |
| That wanders half asleep through Watson’s pasture. | 30 |
| A whip-poor-will was crying in the birches | |
| By the bridge; the stars were tiny points | |
| Of gold above, and the road was dim and gray. | |
| |
| John Mortimer said little, for it seemed | |
| That Mary Allindale belonged to him | 35 |
| That night; the stars and mist-hung road were his, | |
| And awkwardly he took her in his arms. | |
| All the way home he heard her stifled laughter: | |
| He called himself a fool and vowed that he | |
| Would think no more of Mary Allindale. | 40 |
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II The mower sang from dawn until the sun | |
| Was overhead; from noon hour until night. | |
| When hay was in he started on his barn. | |
| He liked the sound of hammers at the work, | |
| And liked to see the visioned barn take form. | 45 |
| August came, and turned green fields to gold. | |
| Now binders moved across the sunny fields; | |
| Men followed them and left the grain in shocks. | |
| The threshers crawled along the country roads— | |
| Great Chinese dragons. Men brought them loads of grain | 50 |
| To be devoured in a cloud of dust. | |
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| When the barn was done his neighbors came in crowds, | |
| But Mary did not come. Shrill fiddles scraped, | |
| Feet stamped and shuffled; but he stood outside. | |
| So she preferred to him a good-for-nothing | 55 |
| Fiddling fool who scarcely owned the clothes | |
| Upon his back. “They’ve gone out west to make | |
| A fortune; then they’ll study music.” The moon | |
| Came from behind a cloud and grinned at him. | |
| A screech-owl laughed from somewhere in the dark. | 60 |
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III A steady thud and clump of horses’ feet; | |
| A single crow seemed frozen in the sky— | |
| Borne on the cruel wind it drifted by. | |
| John Mortimer plowed on from dark to dark; | |
| He cut his fields in furrows for the frost | 65 |
| And snow to smooth. But earth had lost its goodness— | |
| He did not care whether it shone or rained. | |
| The days when sun poured down like golden wine | |
| Did not deceive—he knew the world was wrong. | |
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IV The tiniest stream is hushed when winter comes. | 70 |
| It cannot whisper to the passing banks | |
| About the great green ocean and its ships. | |
| The days when it has run before the wind | |
| Laughing and beckoning with hands of foam, | |
| The nights when tired of play it has crept up | 75 |
| Some distant bay and murmured round the piling | |
| Of silent rocks, are all forgotten now. | |
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| And winter hushed the whispering memories. | |
| He swung his ax all day and had no thoughts | |
| Except the quiet things about his work | 80 |
| That come unsought to every worker’s mind. | |
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| One morning, going townward with the milk, | |
| He stopped to give the new schoolma’am a lift. | |
| Though he had often passed her on the road | |
| He had never known how beautiful she was. | 85 |
| Though snow still lay in drifts on northern slopes, | |
| Though trees and roadside brush were white with frost, | |
| John Mortimer could feel the coming spring. | |
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