Six months and more have cantered by: And, Winter past, we're out again-- We've left the fat and weatherwise To keep their coops and reeking sties. And eat their fill of oven-pies, While we win free and out again To take potluck beneath the sky With sun and moon and wind and rain. Six happy months ... and yet, at night, I've often wakened in affright, And looked upon her lying there, Beside me sleeping quietly, Adread that when she waked, I'd see The hunted hare within her eyes. And only last night, as I slept Beneath the shelter of a stack ... My hands were hot upon a hare, Half-strangled, struggling in the snare, When, suddenly, her eyes shot back, Big, fearful, staggering and black; And ere I knew, my grip was slack, And I was clutching empty air ... Bolt-upright from my sleep I leapt ... Her place was empty in the straw ... And then, with quaking heart, I saw That she was standing in the night, A leveret cuddled to her breast ... I spoke no word; but as the light Through banks of Eastern cloud was breaking, She turned, and saw that I was waking: And told me how she could not rest; And, rising in the night, she'd found This baby-hare crouched on the ground; And she had nursed it quite a while; But, now, she'd better let it go ... Its mother would be fretting so ... A mother's heart ... I saw her smile, And look at me with tender eyes; And as I looked into their light, My foolish, fearful heart grew wise ... And now, I knew that never there I'd see again the startled hare, Or need to dread the dreams of night. GERANIUMS Stuck in a bottle on the window-sill, In the cold gaslight burning gaily red Against the luminous blue of London night, These flowers are mine: while somewhere out of sight In some black-throated alley's stench and heat, Oblivious of the racket of the street, A poor old weary woman lies in bed. Broken with lust and drink, blear-eyed and ill, Her battered bonnet nodding on her head, From a dark arch she clutched my sleeve and said: 'I've sold no bunch to-day, nor touched a bite ... Son, buy six-pennorth; and 't will mean a bed.' So blazing gaily red Against the luminous deeps Of starless London night, They burn for my delight: While somewhere, snug in bed, A worn old woman sleeps. And yet to-morrow will these blooms be dead With all their lively beauty; and to-morrow May end the light lusts and the heavy sorrow Of that old body with the nodding head. The last oath muttered, the last pint drained deep, She'll sink, as Cleopatra sank, to sleep; Nor need to barter blossoms for a bed. DEVIL'S EDGE All night I lay on Devil's Edge, Along an overhanging ledge Between the sky and sea: And as I rested 'waiting sleep, The windless sky and soundless deep In one dim, blue infinity Of starry peace encompassed me.