Part 9

The first star pricks as sharp as steel-- Why am I suddenly so cold? Three bells, each with a separate sound Clang in the valley, wearily tolled.

Bells in Venice, bells at sea, Bells in the valley heavy and slow-- There is no place over the crowded world Where I can forget that the days go.

Lovely Chance

O lovely chance, what can I do To give my gratefulness to you? You rise between myself and me With a wise persistency; I would have broken body and soul, But by your grace, still I am whole. Many a thing you did to save me, Many a holy gift you gave me, Music and friends and happy love More than my dearest dreaming of; And now in this wide twilight hour With earth and heaven a dark, blue flower, In a humble mood I bless Your wisdom--and your waywardness. You brought me even here, where I Live on a hill against the sky And look on mountains and the sea And a thin white moon in the pepper tree.

VIII

"There Will Come Soft Rains"

(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground, And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night, And wild plum-trees in tremulous white;

Robins will wear their feathery fire Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn, Would scarcely know that we were gone.

In a Garden

The world is resting without sound or motion, Behind the apple tree the sun goes down Painting with fire the spires and the windows In the elm-shaded town.

Beyond the calm Connecticut the hills lie Silvered with haze as fruits still fresh with bloom, The swallows weave in flight across the zenith On an aerial loom.

Into the garden peace comes back with twilight, Peace that since noon had left the purple phlox, The heavy-headed asters, the late roses And swaying hollyhocks.

For at high-noon I heard from this same garden The far-off murmur as when many come; Up from the village surged the blind and beating Red music of a drum;

And the hysterical sharp fife that shattered The brittle autumn air, While they came, the young men marching Past the village square. . . .

Across the calm Connecticut the hills change To violet, the veils of dusk are deep-- Earth takes her children's many sorrows calmly And stills herself to sleep.

Nahant

Bowed as an elm under the weight of its beauty, So earth is bowed, under her weight of splendor, Molten sea, richness of leaves and the burnished Bronze of sea-grasses.

Clefts in the cliff shelter the purple sand-peas And chicory flowers bluer than the ocean Flinging its foam high, white fire in sunshine, Jewels of water.

Joyous thunder of blown waves on the ledges, Make me forget war and the dark war-sorrow-- Against the sky a sentry paces the sea-cliff Slim in his khaki.

Winter Stars

I went out at night alone; The young blood flowing beyond the sea Seemed to have drenched my spirit's wings-- I bore my sorrow heavily.

But when I lifted up my head From shadows shaken on the snow, I saw Orion in the east Burn steadily as long ago.

From windows in my father's house, Dreaming my dreams on winter nights, I watched Orion as a girl Above another city's lights.