Lovers, forget your love,
     And list to the love of these,
She a window flower,
     And he a winter breeze.

When the frosty window veil
     Was melted down at noon,
And the cagèd yellow bird
     Hung over her in tune,

He marked her through the pane,
     He could not help but mark,
And only passed her by,
     To come again at dark.

He was a winter wind,
     Concerned with ice and snow,
Dead weeds and unmated birds,
     And little of love could know.

But he sighed upon the sill,
     He gave the sash a shake,
As witness all within
     Who lay that night awake.

Perchance he half prevailed
     To win her for the flight
From the firelit looking-glass
     And warm stove-window light.

But the flower leaned aside
     And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
     A hundred miles away.

Love has earth to which she clings  
With hills and circling arms about—  
Wall within wall to shut fear out.  
But Thought has need of no such things,  
For Thought has a pair of dauntless wings.
  
On snow and sand and turf, I see  
Where Love has left a printed trace  
With straining in the world’s embrace.  
And such is Love and glad to be.  
But Thought has shaken his ankles free.
  
Thought cleaves the interstellar gloom  
And sits in Sirius’ disc all night,  
Till day makes him retrace his flight,  
With smell of burning on every plume,  
Back past the sun to an earthly room.
  
His gains in heaven are what they are.  
Yet some say Love by being thrall  
And simply staying possesses all  
In several beauty that Thought fares far  
To find fused in another star.