On the Gulf of Night

Save when the darkness glimmers with a ray,
And Hope sings softly, Soon it will be day.
Then for a golden space the shades are thinned,
And dawn seems blowing seaward on the wind.
But soon the dark comes wilder than before,
And swift around them breaks a sullen roar;
The tempest calls to windward and to lea,
And they are sea-birds on the homeless sea.

The harvest moon has dwindled-they have housed the corn and rye;

And now the idle reapers lounge against the bolted doors

Without are hungry harvesters, within enchanted

stores.

Lo, they had bread while they were out a-toiling in the sun:

Now they are strolling beggars, for the harvest work

is done.

A Harvest Song

They are the gods of husbandry: they gather in the sheaves,

But when the autumn strips the wood, they're drifting with the leaves.

They plow and sow and gather in the glory of the

corn;

They know the noon, they know the pitiless rains before the morn;

They know the sweep of furrowed fields that darken in the gloom—

A little while their hope on earth, then evermore their tomb.

Two Taverns

I remember how I lay
On a bank a summer day,
Peering into weed and flower:
Watched a poppy all one hour;
Watched it till the air grew chill
In the darkness of the hill;

Till I saw a wild bee dart

Out of the cold to the poppy's heart;

Saw the petals gently spin,

And shut the little lodger in.
Then I took the quiet road
To my own secure abode.
All night long his tavern hung;
Now it rested, now it swung;
I asleep in steadfast tower,
He asleep in stirring flower;
In our hearts the same delight
In the hushes of the night;

O'er us both the same dear care
As we slumbered unaware.

When I see a workingman with mouths to feed, Up, day after day, in the dark before the dawn, And coming home, night after night, through the dusk,

Swinging forward like some fierce silent animal, I see a man doomed to roll a huge stone up an

endless steep.

He strains it onward inch by stubborn inch,
Crouched always in the shadow of the rock.
See where he crouches, twisted, cramped, mis-
shapen!

ΙΟΙ