Death devours all lovely things;
       Lesbia with her sparrow
     Shares the darkness,—presently
       Every bed is narrow.

     Unremembered as old rain
       Dries the sheer libation,
     And the little petulant hand
       Is an annotation.

     After all, my erstwhile dear,
       My no longer cherished,
     Need we say it was not love,
       Now that love is perished?

     If it were only still!—
     With far away the shrill
     Crying of a cock;
     Or the shaken bell
     From a cow's throat
     Moving through the bushes;
     Or the soft shock
     Of wizened apples falling
     From an old tree
     In a forgotten orchard
     Upon the hilly rock!

     Oh, grey hill,
     Where the grazing herd
     Licks the purple blossom,
     Crops the spiky weed!
     Oh, stony pasture,
     Where the tall mullein
     Stands up so sturdy
     On its little seed!

     I

     I had forgotten how the frogs must sound
     After a year of silence, else I think
     I should not so have ventured forth alone
     At dusk upon this unfrequented road.

     II

     I am waylaid by Beauty.  Who will walk
     Between me and the crying of the frogs?
     Oh, savage Beauty, suffer me to pass,
     That am a timid woman, on her way
     From one house to another!

     The railroad track is miles away,
       And the day is loud with voices speaking,
     Yet there isn't a train goes by all day
       But I hear its whistle shrieking.

     All night there isn't a train goes by,
       Though the night is still for sleep and dreaming
     But I see its cinders red on the sky,
       And hear its engine steaming.

     My heart is warm with the friends I make,
       And better friends I'll not be knowing,
     Yet there isn't a train I wouldn't take,
       No matter where it's going.

     These wet rocks where the tide has been,
       Barnacled white and weeded brown
     And slimed beneath to a beautiful green,
       These wet rocks where the tide went down
     Will show again when the tide is high
       Faint and perilous, far from shore,
     No place to dream, but a place to die,—
       The bottom of the sea once more.
     There was a child that wandered through
       A giant's empty house all day,—
     House full of wonderful things and new,
       But no fit place for a child to play.