30. October   
   
   
O HUSHED October morning mild,      
Thy leaves have ripened to the fall;      
To-morrow’s wind, if it be wild,      
Should waste them all.      
The crows above the forest call;           5   
To-morrow they may form and go.      
O hushed October morning mild,      
Begin the hours of this day slow,      
Make the day seem to us less brief.      
Hearts not averse to being beguiled,           10   
Beguile us in the way you know;      
Release one leaf at break of day;      
At noon release another leaf;      
One from our trees, one far away;      
Retard the sun with gentle mist;           15   
Enchant the land with amethyst.      
Slow, slow!      
For the grapes’ sake, if they were all,      
Whose leaves already are burnt with frost,      
Whose clustered fruit must else be lost—           20   
For the grapes’ sake along the wall.

31. My Butterfly   
   
   
THINE emulous fond flowers are dead, too,      
And the daft sun-assaulter, he      
That frighted thee so oft, is fled or dead:      
Save only me      
(Nor is it sad to thee!)           5   
Save only me      
There is none left to mourn thee in the fields.      
   
The gray grass is not dappled with the snow;      
Its two banks have not shut upon the river;      
But it is long ago—           10   
It seems forever—      
Since first I saw thee glance,      
With all the dazzling other ones,      
In airy dalliance,      
Precipitate in love,           15   
Tossed, tangled, whirled and whirled above,      
Like a limp rose-wreath in a fairy dance.      
   
When that was, the soft mist      
Of my regret hung not on all the land,      
And I was glad for thee,           20   
And glad for me, I wist.      
   
Thou didst not know, who tottered, wandering on high,      
That fate had made thee for the pleasure of the wind,      
With those great careless wings,      
Nor yet did I.           25   
   
And there were other things:      
It seemed God let thee flutter from his gentle clasp:      
Then fearful he had let thee win      
Too far beyond him to be gathered in,      
Snatched thee, o’er eager, with ungentle grasp.           30   
   
Ah! I remember me      
How once conspiracy was rife      
Against my life—      
The languor of it and the dreaming fond;      
Surging, the grasses dizzied me of thought,           35   
The breeze three odors brought,      
And a gem-flower waved in a wand!      
   
Then when I was distraught      
And could not speak,      
Sidelong, full on my cheek,           40   
What should that reckless zephyr fling      
But the wild touch of thy dye-dusty wing!      
   
I found that wing broken to-day!      
For thou are dead, I said,      
And the strange birds say.           45   
I found it with the withered leaves      
Under the eaves.

32. Reluctance   
   
   
OUT through the fields and the woods      
  And over the walls I have wended;      
I have climbed the hills of view      
  And looked at the world, and descended;      
I have come by the highway home,           5   
  And lo, it is ended.      
   
The leaves are all dead on the ground,      
  Save those that the oak is keeping      
To ravel them one by one      
  And let them go scraping and creeping           10   
Out over the crusted snow,      
  When others are sleeping.      
   
And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,      
  No longer blown hither and thither;      
The last lone aster is gone;           15   
  The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;      
The heart is still aching to seek,      
  But the feet question ‘Whither?’      
   
Ah, when to the heart of man      
  Was it ever less than a treason           20   
To go with the drift of things,      
  To yield with a grace to reason,      
And bow and accept the end      
  Of a love or a season?      

Robert Frost (1874–1963).  North of Boston.  1915.   
     
Contents

   
The Pasture
Mending Wall
The Death of the Hired Man
The Mountain
A Hundred Collars
Home Burial
The Black Cottage
Blueberries
A Servant to Servants
After Apple-picking
The Code
The Generations of Men
The Housekeeper
The Fear
The Self-seeker
The Wood-pile
Good Hours

1. The Pasture   
   
   
I’M going out to clean the pasture spring;      
I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away      
(And wait to watch the water clear, I may):      
I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.      
   
I’m going out to fetch the little calf           5   
That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young,      
It totters when she licks it with her tongue.      
I sha’n’t be gone long.—You come too.

2. Mending Wall   
   
   
SOMETHING there is that doesn’t love a wall,      
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,      
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;      
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.      
The work of hunters is another thing:           5   
I have come after them and made repair      
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,      
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,      
To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,      
No one has seen them made or heard them made,           10   
But at spring mending-time we find them there.      
I let my neighbour know beyond the hill;      
And on a day we meet to walk the line      
And set the wall between us once again.      
We keep the wall between us as we go.           15   
To each the boulders that have fallen to each.      
And some are loaves and some so nearly balls      
We have to use a spell to make them balance:      
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”      
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.           20   
Oh, just another kind of out-door game,      
One on a side. It comes to little more:      
There where it is we do not need the wall:      
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.      
My apple trees will never get across           25   
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.      
He only says, “Good fences make good neighbours.”      
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder      
If I could put a notion in his head:      
“Why do they make good neighbours? Isn’t it           30   
Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.      
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know      
What I was walling in or walling out,      
And to whom I was like to give offence.      
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,           35   
That wants it down.” I could say “Elves” to him,      
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather      
He said it for himself. I see him there      
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top      
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.           40   
He moves in darkness as it seems to me,      
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.      
He will not go behind his father’s saying,      
And he likes having thought of it so well      
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbours.”

Mending Wall takes up the theme where A Tuft of Flowers in A Boy’s Will laid it down.      

3. The Death of the Hired Man   
   
   
MARY sat musing on the lamp-flame at the table      
Waiting for Warren. When she heard his step,      
She ran on tip-toe down the darkened passage      
To meet him in the doorway with the news      
And put him on his guard. “Silas is back.”           5   
She pushed him outward with her through the door      
And shut it after her. “Be kind,” she said.      
She took the market things from Warren’s arms      
And set them on the porch, then drew him down      
To sit beside her on the wooden steps.           10   
   
“When was I ever anything but kind to him?      
But I’ll not have the fellow back,” he said.      
“I told him so last haying, didn’t I?      
‘If he left then,’ I said, ‘that ended it.’      
What good is he? Who else will harbour him           15   
At his age for the little he can do?      
What help he is there’s no depending on.      
Off he goes always when I need him most.      
‘He thinks he ought to earn a little pay,      
Enough at least to buy tobacco with,           20   
So he won’t have to beg and be beholden.’      
‘All right,’ I say, ‘I can’t afford to pay      
Any fixed wages, though I wish I could.’      
‘Someone else can.’ ‘Then someone else will have to.’      
I shouldn’t mind his bettering himself           25   
If that was what it was. You can be certain,      
When he begins like that, there’s someone at him      
Trying to coax him off with pocket-money,—      
In haying time, when any help is scarce.      
In winter he comes back to us. I’m done.”           30   
   
“Sh! not so loud: he’ll hear you,” Mary said.      
   
“I want him to: he’ll have to soon or late.”      
   
“He’s worn out. He’s asleep beside the stove.      
When I came up from Rowe’s I found him here,      
Huddled against the barn-door fast asleep,           35   
A miserable sight, and frightening, too—      
You needn’t smile—I didn’t recognise him—      
I wasn’t looking for him—and he’s changed.      
Wait till you see.”      
   
“Where did you say he’d been?”           40   
   
“He didn’t say. I dragged him to the house,      
And gave him tea and tried to make him smoke.      
I tried to make him talk about his travels.      
Nothing would do: he just kept nodding off.”      
   
“What did he say? Did he say anything?”           45   
   
“But little.”      
   
“Anything? Mary, confess      
He said he’d come to ditch the meadow for me.”      
   
“Warren!”      
   
“But did he? I just want to know.”           50   
   
“Of course he did. What would you have him say?      
Surely you wouldn’t grudge the poor old man      
Some humble way to save his self-respect.      
He added, if you really care to know,      
He meant to clear the upper pasture, too.           55   
That sounds like something you have heard before?      
Warren, I wish you could have heard the way      
He jumbled everything. I stopped to look      
Two or three times—he made me feel so queer—      
To see if he was talking in his sleep.           60   
He ran on Harold Wilson—you remember—      
The boy you had in haying four years since.      
He’s finished school, and teaching in his college.      
Silas declares you’ll have to get him back.      
He says they two will make a team for work:           65   
Between them they will lay this farm as smooth!      
The way he mixed that in with other things.      
He thinks young Wilson a likely lad, though daft      
On education—you know how they fought      
All through July under the blazing sun,           70   
Silas up on the cart to build the load,      
Harold along beside to pitch it on.”      
   
“Yes, I took care to keep well out of earshot.”      
   
“Well, those days trouble Silas like a dream.      
You wouldn’t think they would. How some things linger!           75   
Harold’s young college boy’s assurance piqued him.      
After so many years he still keeps finding      
Good arguments he sees he might have used.      
I sympathise. I know just how it feels      
To think of the right thing to say too late.           80   
Harold’s associated in his mind with Latin.      
He asked me what I thought of Harold’s saying      
He studied Latin like the violin      
Because he liked it—that an argument!      
He said he couldn’t make the boy believe           85   
He could find water with a hazel prong—      
Which showed how much good school had ever done him.      
He wanted to go over that. But most of all      
He thinks if he could have another chance      
To teach him how to build a load of hay——”           90   
   
“I know, that’s Silas’ one accomplishment.      
He bundles every forkful in its place,      
And tags and numbers it for future reference,      
So he can find and easily dislodge it      
In the unloading. Silas does that well.           95   
He takes it out in bunches like big birds’ nests.      
You never see him standing on the hay      
He’s trying to lift, straining to lift himself.”      
   
“He thinks if he could teach him that, he’d be      
Some good perhaps to someone in the world.           100   
He hates to see a boy the fool of books.      
Poor Silas, so concerned for other folk,      
And nothing to look backward to with pride,      
And nothing to look forward to with hope,      
So now and never any different.”           105   
   
Part of a moon was falling down the west,      
Dragging the whole sky with it to the hills.      
Its light poured softly in her lap. She saw      
And spread her apron to it. She put out her hand      
Among the harp-like morning-glory strings,           110   
Taut with the dew from garden bed to eaves,      
As if she played unheard the tenderness      
That wrought on him beside her in the night.      
“Warren,” she said, “he has come home to die:      
You needn’t be afraid he’ll leave you this time.”           115   
   
“Home,” he mocked gently.      
   
“Yes, what else but home?      
It all depends on what you mean by home.      
Of course he’s nothing to us, any more      
Than was the hound that came a stranger to us           120   
Out of the woods, worn out upon the trail.”      
   
“Home is the place where, when you have to go there,      
They have to take you in.”      
   
“I should have called it      
Something you somehow haven’t to deserve.”           125   
   
Warren leaned out and took a step or two,      
Picked up a little stick, and brought it back      
And broke it in his hand and tossed it by.      
“Silas has better claim on us you think      
Than on his brother? Thirteen little miles           130   
As the road winds would bring him to his door.      
Silas has walked that far no doubt to-day.      
Why didn’t he go there? His brother’s rich,      
A somebody—director in the bank.”      
   
“He never told us that.”           135   
   
“We know it though.”      
   
“I think his brother ought to help, of course.      
I’ll see to that if there is need. He ought of right      
To take him in, and might be willing to—      
He may be better than appearances.           140   
But have some pity on Silas. Do you think      
If he’d had any pride in claiming kin      
Or anything he looked for from his brother,      
He’d keep so still about him all this time?”      
   
“I wonder what’s between them.”           145   
   
“I can tell you.      
Silas is what he is—we wouldn’t mind him—      
But just the kind that kinsfolk can’t abide.      
He never did a thing so very bad.      
He don’t know why he isn’t quite as good           150   
As anyone. He won’t be made ashamed      
To please his brother, worthless though he is.”      
   
“I can’t think Si ever hurt anyone.”      
   
“No, but he hurt my heart the way he lay      
And rolled his old head on that sharp-edged chair-back.           155   
He wouldn’t let me put him on the lounge.      
You must go in and see what you can do.      
I made the bed up for him there to-night.      
You’ll be surprised at him—how much he’s broken.      
His working days are done; I’m sure of it.”           160   
   
“I’d not be in a hurry to say that.”      
   
“I haven’t been. Go, look, see for yourself.      
But, Warren, please remember how it is:      
He’s come to help you ditch the meadow.      
He has a plan. You mustn’t laugh at him.           165   
He may not speak of it, and then he may.      
I’ll sit and see if that small sailing cloud      
Will hit or miss the moon.”      
   
It hit the moon.      
Then there were three there, making a dim row,           170   
The moon, the little silver cloud, and she.      
   
Warren returned—too soon, it seemed to her,      
Slipped to her side, caught up her hand and waited.      
   
“Warren,” she questioned.      
   
“Dead,” was all he answered.           175

4. The Mountain   
   
   
THE MOUNTAIN held the town as in a shadow      
I saw so much before I slept there once:      
I noticed that I missed stars in the west,      
Where its black body cut into the sky.      
Near me it seemed: I felt it like a wall           5   
Behind which I was sheltered from a wind.      
And yet between the town and it I found,      
When I walked forth at dawn to see new things,      
Were fields, a river, and beyond, more fields.      
The river at the time was fallen away,           10   
And made a widespread brawl on cobble-stones;      
But the signs showed what it had done in spring;      
Good grass-land gullied out, and in the grass      
Ridges of sand, and driftwood stripped of bark.      
I crossed the river and swung round the mountain.           15   
And there I met a man who moved so slow      
With white-faced oxen in a heavy cart,      
It seemed no hand to stop him altogether.      
   
“What town is this?” I asked.      
   
“This? Lunenburg.”           20   
   
Then I was wrong: the town of my sojourn,      
Beyond the bridge, was not that of the mountain,      
But only felt at night its shadowy presence.      
“Where is your village? Very far from here?”      
   
“There is no village—only scattered farms.           25   
We were but sixty voters last election.      
We can’t in nature grow to many more:      
That thing takes all the room!” He moved his goad.      
The mountain stood there to be pointed at.      
Pasture ran up the side a little way,           30   
And then there was a wall of trees with trunks:      
After that only tops of trees, and cliffs      
Imperfectly concealed among the leaves.      
A dry ravine emerged from under boughs      
Into the pasture.           35   
   
“That looks like a path.      
Is that the way to reach the top from here?—      
Not for this morning, but some other time:      
I must be getting back to breakfast now.”      
   
“I don’t advise your trying from this side.           40   
There is no proper path, but those that have      
Been up, I understand, have climbed from Ladd’s.      
That’s five miles back. You can’t mistake the place:      
They logged it there last winter some way up.      
I’d take you, but I’m bound the other way.”           45   
   
“You’ve never climbed it?”      
   
“I’ve been on the sides      
Deer-hunting and trout-fishing. There’s a brook      
That starts up on it somewhere—I’ve heard say      
Right on the top, tip-top—a curious thing.           50   
But what would interest you about the brook,      
It’s always cold in summer, warm in winter.      
One of the great sights going is to see      
It steam in winter like an ox’s breath,      
Until the bushes all along its banks           55   
Are inch-deep with the frosty spines and bristles—      
You know the kind. Then let the sun shine on it!”      
   
“There ought to be a view around the world      
From such a mountain—if it isn’t wooded      
Clear to the top.” I saw through leafy screens           60   
Great granite terraces in sun and shadow,      
Shelves one could rest a knee on getting up—      
With depths behind him sheer a hundred feet;      
Or turn and sit on and look out and down,      
With little ferns in crevices at his elbow.           65   
   
“As to that I can’t say. But there’s the spring,      
Right on the summit, almost like a fountain.      
That ought to be worth seeing.”      
   
“If it’s there.      
You never saw it?”           70   
   
“I guess there’s no doubt      
About its being there. I never saw it.      
It may not be right on the very top:      
It wouldn’t have to be a long way down      
To have some head of water from above,           75   
And a good distance down might not be noticed      
By anyone who’d come a long way up.      
One time I asked a fellow climbing it      
To look and tell me later how it was.”      
   
“What did he say?”           80   
   
“He said there was a lake      
Somewhere in Ireland on a mountain top.”      
   
“But a lake’s different. What about the spring?”      
   
“He never got up high enough to see.      
That’s why I don’t advise your trying this side.           85   
He tried this side. I’ve always meant to go      
And look myself, but you know how it is:      
It doesn’t seem so much to climb a mountain      
You’ve worked around the foot of all your life.      
What would I do? Go in my overalls,           90   
With a big stick, the same as when the cows      
Haven’t come down to the bars at milking time?      
Or with a shotgun for a stray black bear?      
’Twouldn’t seem real to climb for climbing it.”      
   
“I shouldn’t climb it if I didn’t want to—           95   
Not for the sake of climbing. What’s its name?”      
   
“We call it Hor: I don’t know if that’s right.”      
   
“Can one walk around it? Would it be too far?”      
   
“You can drive round and keep in Lunenburg,      
But it’s as much as ever you can do,           100   
The boundary lines keep in so close to it.      
Hor is the township, and the township’s Hor—      
And a few houses sprinkled round the foot,      
Like boulders broken off the upper cliff,      
Rolled out a little farther than the rest.”           105   
   
“Warm in December, cold in June, you say?”      
   
“I don’t suppose the water’s changed at all.      
You and I know enough to know it’s warm      
Compared with cold, and cold compared with warm.      
But all the fun’s in how you say a thing.”           110   
   
“You’ve lived here all your life?”      
   
“Ever since Hor      
Was no bigger than a——” What, I did not hear.      
He drew the oxen toward him with light touches      
Of his slim goad on nose and offside flank,           115   
Gave them their marching orders and was moving.

5. A Hundred Collars   
   
   
LANCASTER bore him—such a little town,      
Such a great man. It doesn’t see him often      
Of late years, though he keeps the old homestead      
And sends the children down there with their mother      
To run wild in the summer—a little wild.           5   
Sometimes he joins them for a day or two      
And sees old friends he somehow can’t get near.      
They meet him in the general store at night,      
Pre-occupied with formidable mail,      
Rifling a printed letter as he talks.           10   
They seem afraid. He wouldn’t have it so:      
Though a great scholar, he’s a democrat,      
If not at heart, at least on principle.      
Lately when coming up to Lancaster      
His train being late he missed another train           15   
And had four hours to wait at Woodsville Junction      
After eleven o’clock at night. Too tired      
To think of sitting such an ordeal out,      
He turned to the hotel to find a bed.      
   
“No room,” the night clerk said. “Unless——”           20   
Woodsville’s a place of shrieks and wandering lamps      
And cars that shook and rattle—and one hotel.      
   
“You say ‘unless.’“      
   
“Unless you wouldn’t mind      
Sharing a room with someone else.”           25   
   
“Who is it?”      
   
“A man.”      
   
“So I should hope. What kind of man?”      
   
“I know him: he’s all right. A man’s a man.      
Separate beds of course you understand.”           30   
The night clerk blinked his eyes and dared him on.      
   
“Who’s that man sleeping in the office chair?      
Has he had the refusal of my chance?”      
   
“He was afraid of being robbed or murdered.      
What do you say?”           35   
   
“I’ll have to have a bed.”      
   
The night clerk led him up three flights of stairs      
And down a narrow passage full of doors,      
At the last one of which he knocked and entered.      
“Lafe, here’s a fellow wants to share your room.”           40   
   
“Show him this way. I’m not afraid of him.      
I’m not so drunk I can’t take care of myself.”      
   
The night clerk clapped a bedstead on the foot.      
“This will be yours. Good-night,” he said, and went.      
   
“Lafe was the name, I think?”           45   
   
“Yes, Layfayette.      
You got it the first time. And yours?”      
   
“Magoon.      
   
Doctor Magoon.”      
   
“A Doctor?”           50   
   
“Well, a teacher.”      
   
“Professor Square-the-circle-till-you’re-tired?      
Hold on, there’s something I don’t think of now      
That I had on my mind to ask the first      
Man that knew anything I happened in with.           55   
I’ll ask you later—don’t let me forget it.”      
   
The Doctor looked at Lafe and looked away.      
A man? A brute. Naked above the waist,      
He sat there creased and shining in the light,      
Fumbling the buttons in a well-starched shirt.           60   
“I’m moving into a size-larger shirt.      
I’ve felt mean lately; mean’s no name for it.      
I just found what the matter was to-night:      
I’ve been a-choking like a nursery tree      
When it outgrows the wire band of its name tag.           65   
I blamed it on the hot spell we’ve been having.      
’Twas nothing but my foolish hanging back,      
Not liking to own up I’d grown a size.      
Number eighteen this is. What size do you wear?”      
   
The Doctor caught his throat convulsively.           70   
“Oh—ah—fourteen—fourteen.”      
   
“Fourteen! You say so!      
I can remember when I wore fourteen.      
And come to think I must have back at home      
More than a hundred collars, size fourteen.           75   
Too bad to waste them all. You ought to have them.      
They’re yours and welcome; let me send them to you.      
What makes you stand there on one leg like that?      
You’re not much furtherer than where Kike left you.      
You act as if you wished you hadn’t come.           80   
Sit down or lie down, friend; you make me nervous.”      
   
The Doctor made a subdued dash for it,      
And propped himself at bay against a pillow.      
   
“Not that way, with your shoes on Kike’s white bed.      
You can’t rest that way. Let me pull your shoes off.”           85   
   
“Don’t touch me, please—I say, don’t touch me, please.      
I’ll not be put to bed by you, my man.”      
   
“Just as you say. Have it your own way then.      
‘My man’ is it? You talk like a professor.      
Speaking of who’s afraid of who, however,           90   
I’m thinking I have more to lose than you      
If anything should happen to be wrong.      
Who wants to cut your number fourteen throat!      
Let’s have a show down as an evidence      
Of good faith. There is ninety dollars.           95   
Come, if you’re not afraid.”      
   
“I’m not afraid.      
There’s five: that’s all I carry.”      
   
“I can search you?      
Where are you moving over to? Stay still.           100   
You’d better tuck your money under you      
And sleep on it the way I always do      
When I’m with people I don’t trust at night.”      
   
“Will you believe me if I put it there      
Right on the counterpane—that I do trust you?”           105   
   
“You’d say so, Mister Man.—I’m a collector.      
My ninety isn’t mine—you won’t think that.      
I pick it up a dollar at a time      
All round the country for the Weekly News,      
Published in Bow. You know the Weekly News?”           110   
   
“Known it since I was young.”      
   
“Then you know me.      
Now we are getting on together—talking.      
I’m sort of Something for it at the front.      
My business is to find what people want:           115   
They pay for it, and so they ought to have it.      
Fairbanks, he says to me—he’s editor—      
Feel out the public sentiment—he says.      
A good deal comes on me when all is said.      
The only trouble is we disagree           120   
In politics: I’m Vermont Democrat—      
You know what that is, sort of double-dyed;      
The News has always been Republican.      
Fairbanks, he says to me, ‘Help us this year,’      
Meaning by us their ticket. ‘No,’ I says,           125   
‘I can’t and won’t. You’ve been in long enough:      
It’s time you turned around and boosted us.      
You’ll have to pay me more than ten a week      
If I’m expected to elect Bill Taft.      
I doubt if I could do it anyway.’“           130   
   
“You seem to shape the paper’s policy.”      
   
“You see I’m in with everybody, know ’em all.      
I almost know their farms as well as they do.”      
   
“You drive around? It must be pleasant work.”      
   
“It’s business, but I can’t say it’s not fun.           135   
What I like best’s the lay of different farms,      
Coming out on them from a stretch of woods,      
Or over a hill or round a sudden corner.      
I like to find folks getting out in spring,      
Raking the dooryard, working near the house.           140   
Later they get out further in the fields.      
Everything’s shut sometimes except the barn;      
The family’s all away in some back meadow.      
There’s a hay load a-coming—when it comes.      
And later still they all get driven in:           145   
The fields are stripped to lawn, the garden patches      
Stripped to bare ground, the apple trees      
To whips and poles. There’s nobody about.      
The chimney, though, keeps up a good brisk smoking.      
And I lie back and ride. I take the reins           150   
Only when someone’s coming, and the mare      
Stops when she likes: I tell her when to go.      
I’ve spoiled Jemima in more ways than one.      
She’s got so she turns in at every house      
As if she had some sort of curvature,           155   
No matter if I have no errand there.      
She thinks I’m sociable. I maybe am.      
It’s seldom I get down except for meals, though.      
Folks entertain me from the kitchen doorstep,      
All in a family row down to the youngest.”           160   
   
“One would suppose they might not be as glad      
To see you as you are to see them.”      
   
“Oh,      
Because I want their dollar. I don’t want      
Anything they’ve not got. I never dun.           165   
I’m there, and they can pay me if they like.      
I go nowhere on purpose: I happen by.      
Sorry there is no cup to give you a drink.      
I drink out of the bottle—not your style.      
Mayn’t I offer you——?”           170   
   
“No, no, no, thank you.”      
   
“Just as you say. Here’s looking at you then.—      
And now I’m leaving you a little while.      
You’ll rest easier when I’m gone, perhaps—      
Lie down—let yourself go and get some sleep.           175   
But first—let’s see—what was I going to ask you?      
Those collars—who shall I address them to,      
Suppose you aren’t awake when I come back?”      
   
“Really, friend, I can’t let you. You—may need them.”      
   
“Not till I shrink, when they’ll be out of style.”           180   
   
“But really I—I have so many collars.”      
   
“I don’t know who I rather would have have them.      
They’re only turning yellow where they are.      
But you’re the doctor as the saying is.      
I’ll put the light out. Don’t you wait for me:           185   
I’ve just begun the night. You get some sleep.      
I’ll knock so-fashion and peep round the door      
When I come back so you’ll know who it is.      
There’s nothing I’m afraid of like scared people.      
I don’t want you should shoot me in the head.           190   
What am I doing carrying off this bottle?      
There now, you get some sleep.”      
   
He shut the door.      
The Doctor slid a little down the pillow.

6. Home Burial   
   
   
HE saw her from the bottom of the stairs      
Before she saw him. She was starting down,      
Looking back over her shoulder at some fear.      
She took a doubtful step and then undid it      
To raise herself and look again. He spoke           5   
Advancing toward her: “What is it you see      
From up there always—for I want to know.”      
She turned and sank upon her skirts at that,      
And her face changed from terrified to dull.      
He said to gain time: “What is it you see,”           10   
Mounting until she cowered under him.      
“I will find out now—you must tell me, dear.”      
She, in her place, refused him any help      
With the least stiffening of her neck and silence.      
She let him look, sure that he wouldn’t see,           15   
Blind creature; and a while he didn’t see.      
But at last he murmured, “Oh,” and again, “Oh.”      
   
“What is it—what?” she said.      
   
“Just that I see.”      
   
“You don’t,” she challenged. “Tell me what it is.”           20   
   
“The wonder is I didn’t see at once.      
I never noticed it from here before.      
I must be wonted to it—that’s the reason.      
The little graveyard where my people are!      
So small the window frames the whole of it.           25   
Not so much larger than a bedroom, is it?      
There are three stones of slate and one of marble,      
Broad-shouldered little slabs there in the sunlight      
On the sidehill. We haven’t to mind those.      
But I understand: it is not the stones,           30   
But the child’s mound——”      
   
“Don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t,” she cried.      
   
She withdrew shrinking from beneath his arm      
That rested on the banister, and slid downstairs;      
And turned on him with such a daunting look,           35   
He said twice over before he knew himself:      
“Can’t a man speak of his own child he’s lost?”      
   
“Not you! Oh, where’s my hat? Oh, I don’t need it!      
I must get out of here. I must get air.      
I don’t know rightly whether any man can.”           40   
   
“Amy! Don’t go to someone else this time.      
Listen to me. I won’t come down the stairs.”      
He sat and fixed his chin between his fists.      
“There’s something I should like to ask you, dear.”      
   
“You don’t know how to ask it.”           45   
   
“Help me, then.”      
Her fingers moved the latch for all reply.      
   
“My words are nearly always an offence.      
I don’t know how to speak of anything      
So as to please you. But I might be taught           50   
I should suppose. I can’t say I see how.      
A man must partly give up being a man      
With women-folk. We could have some arrangement      
By which I’d bind myself to keep hands off      
Anything special you’re a-mind to name.           55   
Though I don’t like such things ’twixt those that love.      
Two that don’t love can’t live together without them.      
But two that do can’t live together with them.”      
She moved the latch a little. “Don’t—don’t go.      
Don’t carry it to someone else this time.           60   
Tell me about it if it’s something human.      
Let me into your grief. I’m not so much      
Unlike other folks as your standing there      
Apart would make me out. Give me my chance.      
I do think, though, you overdo it a little.           65   
What was it brought you up to think it the thing      
To take your mother-loss of a first child      
So inconsolably—in the face of love.      
You’d think his memory might be satisfied——”      
   
“There you go sneering now!”           70   
   
“I’m not, I’m not!      
You make me angry. I’ll come down to you.      
God, what a woman! And it’s come to this,      
A man can’t speak of his own child that’s dead.”      
   
“You can’t because you don’t know how.           75   
If you had any feelings, you that dug      
With your own hand—how could you?—his little grave;      
I saw you from that very window there,      
Making the gravel leap and leap in air,      
Leap up, like that, like that, and land so lightly           80   
And roll back down the mound beside the hole.      
I thought, Who is that man? I didn’t know you.      
And I crept down the stairs and up the stairs      
To look again, and still your spade kept lifting.      
Then you came in. I heard your rumbling voice           85   
Out in the kitchen, and I don’t know why,      
But I went near to see with my own eyes.      
You could sit there with the stains on your shoes      
Of the fresh earth from your own baby’s grave      
And talk about your everyday concerns.           90   
You had stood the spade up against the wall      
Outside there in the entry, for I saw it.”      
   
“I shall laugh the worst laugh I ever laughed.      
I’m cursed. God, if I don’t believe I’m cursed.”      
   
“I can repeat the very words you were saying.           95   
‘Three foggy mornings and one rainy day      
Will rot the best birch fence a man can build.’      
Think of it, talk like that at such a time!      
What had how long it takes a birch to rot      
To do with what was in the darkened parlour.           100   
You couldn’t care! The nearest friends can go      
With anyone to death, comes so far short      
They might as well not try to go at all.      
No, from the time when one is sick to death,      
One is alone, and he dies more alone.           105   
Friends make pretence of following to the grave,      
But before one is in it, their minds are turned      
And making the best of their way back to life      
And living people, and things they understand.      
But the world’s evil. I won’t have grief so           110   
If I can change it. Oh, I won’t, I won’t!”      
   
“There, you have said it all and you feel better.      
You won’t go now. You’re crying. Close the door.      
The heart’s gone out of it: why keep it up.      
Amy! There’s someone coming down the road!”           115   
   
“You—oh, you think the talk is all. I must go—      
Somewhere out of this house. How can I make you——”      
   
“If—you—do!” She was opening the door wider.      
Where do you mean to go? First tell me that.      
I’ll follow and bring you back by force. I will!—”           120