Page:Reuben and other poems.pdf/38

 Keep him out, Reuben! Reuben lad, I'll pay! I doubt all hasn’t been your fault. Oh, say I'll stand, say anything! Only keep him out.”

“I cannot keep him out. The man must do

His duty,” he replied; “and, Sarah lass, What can it matter, now?” His quiet voice Was weighted with a dignity from which She shrank abash’d. The bailiff knock’d again, And Reuben drew the bolt and let him in.

After the long wild tossing months of rain And roaring, ice and gloom, on some still dawn, Windless and mild, the weakling earth awakes. And, lo! once more on mother-knees it lies, And on a dear face opens heavy lids— For there, pale, pensive, veil’d in quietude, Finger on lip, yet not without a smile, Spring broods above her nurseling; all is well! Then, in the spinney, arums of the wood Push up their young white necks, unfurl their broad And genial green about some prone fir-tree, By winter tempests fell’d. The sweet air breathes, The pale beams play about it, quivering light Flits on to it and off, while through the twigs The busy finches flit. But never more Beneath that blister’d bark the suppling sap Will rise; the August sunlight ne’er shall bask