A shelf’s for a clock or vase or picture, But I don’t see why it should have to bear A chimney that only would serve to remind me Of castles I used to build in air. LOOKING FOR A SUNSET BIRD IN WINTER The west was getting out of gold, The breath of air had died of cold, When shoeing home across the white, I thought I saw a bird alight. In summer when I passed the place I had to stop and lift my face; A bird with an angelic gift Was singing in it sweet and swift. No bird was singing in it now. A single leaf was on a bough, And that was all there was to see In going twice around the tree. From my advantage on a hill I judged that such a crystal chill Was only adding frost to snow As gilt to gold that wouldn’t show. A brush had left a crooked stroke Of what was either cloud or smoke From north to south across the blue; A piercing little star was through. A BOUNDLESS MOMENT He halted in the wind, and—what was that Far in the maples, pale, but not a ghost? He stood there bringing March against his thought, And yet too ready to believe the most. “Oh, that’s the Paradise-in-bloom,” I said; And truly it was fair enough for flowers Had we but in us to assume in March Such white luxuriance of May for ours. We stood a moment so in a strange world, Myself as one his own pretense deceives; And then I said the truth (and we moved on): A young beech clinging to its last year’s leaves. EVENING IN A SUGAR ORCHARD From where I lingered in a lull in March Outside the sugar-house one night for choice, I called the fireman with a careful voice And bade him leave the pan and stoke the arch: “O fireman, give the fire another stoke, And send more sparks up chimney with the smoke.” I thought a few might tangle, as they did, Among bare maple boughs, and in the rare Hill atmosphere not cease to glow, And so be added to the moon up there. The moon, though slight, was moon enough to show On every tree a bucket with a lid, And on black ground a bear-skin rug of snow. The sparks made no attempt to be the moon. They were content to figure in the trees As Leo, Orion, and the Pleiades. And that was what the boughs were full of soon. GATHERING LEAVES Spades take up leaves No better than spoons, And bags full of leaves Are light as balloons. I make a great noise Of rustling all day Like rabbit and deer Running away. But the mountains I raise Elude my embrace, Flowing over my arms And into my face. I may load and unload Again and again Till I fill the whole shed, And what have I then? Next to nothing for weight; And since they grew duller From contact with earth, Next to nothing for color. Next to nothing for use. But a crop is a crop, And who’s to say where The harvest shall stop?