All Hallows Night
Two things I did on Hallows Night:— Made my house April-clear; Left open wide my door To the ghosts of the year. Then one came in. Across the room It stood up long and fair— The ghost that was myself— And gave me stare for stare.
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The wind stooped down and wrote a sweet, small word, But the snow fell, and all the writing blurred: Now, the snow gone, we read it as we pass,— The wind’s word in the grass.
Two things I did on Hallows Night:— Made my house April-clear; Left open wide my door To the ghosts of the year. Then one came in. Across the room It stood up long and fair— The ghost that was myself— And gave me stare for stare.
Stumble to silence, all you uneasy things, That pack the day with bluster and with fret. For here is music at each window set; Here is a cup which drips with all the springs That ever bud a cowslip flower; a roof To shelter till the argent weathers break; A candle with enough of light to make My courage bright against each dark reproof. A hand’s width of clear gold, unraveled out The rosy sky, the little moon appears; As they were splashed upon the paling red, Vast, blurred, the village poplars lift about. I think of young, lost things: of lilacs; tears; I think of an old neighbor, long since dead.
A Colonial Custom Bathsheba came out to the sun, Out to our wallèd cherry-trees; The tears adown her cheek did run, Bathsheba standing in the sun, Telling the bees. My mother had that moment died; Unknowing, sped I to the trees, And plucked Bathsheba’s hand aside; Then caught the name that there she cried Telling the bees. Her look I never can forget, I that held sobbing to her knees; The cherry-boughs above us met; I think I see Bathsheba yet Telling the bees.