A Boundless Moment
He halted in the wind, and--what was that / Far in the maples, pale, but not a ghost?
When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened. Birds, at least must know
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in her breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from his nest,
Hurrying low above the grove, some waif
Swoops just in time to his remembered tree.
At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe!
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night bee too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be, be.'
He halted in the wind, and--what was that / Far in the maples, pale, but not a ghost?
Love at the lips was touch / As sweet as I could bear;
Always the same, when on a fated night / At last the gathered snow lets down as white
Whose woods these are I think I know. / His house is in the village though;