Women at your toil, Women at your leisure Till the kettle boil, Snatch of me your pleasure, Where the broom-straw marks the leaf; Women quiet with your weeping Lest you wake a workman sleeping, Mix me with your grief! Boys and girls that steal From the shocking laughter Of the old, to kneel By a dripping rafter Under the discolored eaves, Out of trunks with hingeless covers Lifting tales of saints and lovers, Travelers, goblins, thieves, Suns that shine by night, Mountains made from valleys,-- Bear me to the light, Flat upon your bellies By the webby window lie, Where the little flies are crawling,-- Read me, margin me with scrawling, Do not let me die! Sexton, ply your trade! In a shower of gravel Stamp upon your spade! Many a rose shall ravel, Many a metal wreath shall rust In the rain, and I go singing Through the lots where you are flinging Yellow clay on dust! ALMS My heart is what it was before, A house where people come and go; But it is winter with your love, The sashes are beset with snow. I light the lamp and lay the cloth, I blow the coals to blaze again; But it is winter with your love, The frost is thick upon the pane. I know a winter when it comes: The leaves are listless on the boughs; I watched your love a little while, And brought my plants into the house. I water them and turn them south, I snap the dead brown from the stem; But it is winter with your love,-- I only tend and water them. There was a time I stood and watched The small, ill-natured sparrows' fray; I loved the beggar that I fed, I cared for what he had to say, I stood and watched him out of sight; Today I reach around the door And set a bowl upon the step; My heart is what it was before, But it is winter with your love; I scatter crumbs upon the sill, And close the window,--and the birds May take or leave them, as they will. INLAND People that build their houses inland, People that buy a plot of ground Shaped like a house, and build a house there, Far from the sea-board, far from the sound Of water sucking the hollow ledges, Tons of water striking the shore,-- What do they long for, as I long for One salt smell of the sea once more? People the waves have not awakened, Spanking the boats at the harbor's head, What do they long for, as I long for,-- Starting up in my inland bed, Beating the narrow walls, and finding Neither a window nor a door, Screaming to God for death by drowning,-- One salt taste of the sea once more? TO A POET THAT DIED YOUNG