Nothing was dead: He said “a bird” if he picked up a broken wing, A perished leaf or any such thing Was just “a rose”; and once when I had said He must not stand and knock there any more, He left a twig on the mat outside my door. Not long ago The last thrush stiffened in the snow, While black against a sullen sky The sighing pines stood by. But now the wind has left our rattled pane To flutter the hedge-sparrow’s wing, The birches in the wood are red again And only yesterday The larks went up a little way to sing What lovers say Who loiter in the lanes to-day; The buds begin to talk of May With learned rooks on city trees, And if God please With all of these We too, shall see another Spring. But in that red brick barn upon the hill I wonder--can one own the deer, And does one walk with children still As one did here-- Do roses grow Beneath those twenty windows in a row-- And if some night When you have not seen any light They cannot move you from your chair What happens there? I do not know. So, when they took Ken to that place, I did not look After he called and turned on me His eyes. These I shall see-- À QUOI BON DIRE Seventeen years ago you said Something that sounded like Good-bye; And everybody thinks that you are dead, But I. So I, as I grow stiff and cold To this and that say Good-bye too; And everybody sees that I am old But you. And one fine morning in a sunny lane Some boy and girl will meet and kiss and swear That nobody can love their way again While over there You will have smiled, I shall have tossed your hair. THE QUIET HOUSE When we were children old Nurse used to say, The house was like an auction or a fair Until the lot of us were safe in bed. It has been quiet as the country-side Since Ted and Janey and then Mother died And Tom crossed Father and was sent away. After the lawsuit he could not hold up his head, Poor Father, and he does not care For people here, or to go anywhere. To get away to Aunt’s for that week-end Was hard enough; (since then, a year ago, He scarcely lets me slip out of his sight--) At first I did not like my cousin’s friend, I did not think I should remember him: His voice has gone, his face is growing dim And if I like him now I do not know. He frightened me before he smiled-- He did not ask me if he might-- He said that he would come one Sunday night, He spoke to me as if I were a child.