Page:The Book of the Homeless (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916).djvu/71




 * it is nightfall then.

The valley flush

That beckoned home the way for herds and men

Is hardly spent:

Down the bright pathway winds, through veils of hush

And wonderment.

Unuttered yet the chime

That tells of folding-time;

Hardly the sun has set;—

The trees are sweetly troubled with bright words

From new-alighted birds.

And yet,… Here, round my neck, are come to cling and twine,

The arms, the folding arms, close, close and fain,

All mine!—

I pleaded to, in vain,

I reached for, only to their dimpled scorning,

Down the blue halls of morning;—

Where all things else could lure them on and on,

Now here, now gone,

From bush to bush, from beckoning bough to bough,

With bird-calls of Come Hither!—

Ah, but now… Now it is dusk.—And from his heaven of mirth,