I staid the night for shelter at a farm Behind the mountains, with a mother and son, Two old-believers. They did all the talking. MOTHER Folks think a witch who has familiar spirits She could call up to pass a winter evening, But won't, should be burned at the stake or something. Summoning spirits isn't 'Button, button, Who's got the button,' I would have them know. SON: Mother can make a common table rear And kick with two legs like an army mule. MOTHER: And when I've done it, what good have I done? Rather than tip a table for you, let me Tell you what Ralle the Sioux Control once told me. He said the dead had souls, but when I asked him How could that be - I thought the dead were souls, He broke my trance. Don't that make you suspicious That there's something the dead are keeping back? Yes, there's something the dead are keeping back. SON: You wouldn't want to tell him what we have Up attic, mother? MOTHER: Bones - a skeleton. SON: But the headboard of mother's bed is pushed Against the' attic door: the door is nailed. It's harmless. Mother hears it in the night Halting perplexed behind the barrier Of door and headboard. Where it wants to get Is back into the cellar where it came from. MOTHER: We'll never let them, will we, son! We'll never ! SON: It left the cellar forty years ago And carried itself like a pile of dishes Up one flight from the cellar to the kitchen, Another from the kitchen to the bedroom, Another from the bedroom to the attic, Right past both father and mother, and neither stopped it. Father had gone upstairs; mother was downstairs. I was a baby: I don't know where I was. MOTHER: The only fault my husband found with me - I went to sleep before I went to bed, Especially in winter when the bed Might just as well be ice and the clothes snow. The night the bones came up the cellar-stairs Toffile had gone to bed alone and left me, But left an open door to cool the room off So as to sort of turn me out of it. I was just coming to myself enough To wonder where the cold was coming from, When I heard Toffile upstairs in the bedroom And thought I heard him downstairs in the cellar. The board we had laid down to walk dry-shod on When there was water in the cellar in spring Struck the hard cellar bottom. And then someone Began the stairs, two footsteps for each step, The way a man with one leg and a crutch, Or a little child, comes up. It wasn't Toffile: It wasn't anyone who could be there. The bulkhead double-doors were double-locked And swollen tight and buried under snow. The cellar windows were banked up with sawdust And swollen tight and buried under snow. It was the bones. I knew them - and good reason. My first impulse was to get to the knob And hold the door. But the bones didn't try The door; they halted helpless on the landing, Waiting for things to happen in their favour.' The faintest restless rustling ran all through them. I never could have done the thing I did If the wish hadn't been too strong in me To see how they were mounted for this walk. I had a vision of them put together Not like a man, but like a chandelier. So suddenly I flung the door wide on him. A moment he stood balancing with emotion, And all but lost himself. (A tongue of fire Flashed out and licked along his upper teeth. Smoke rolled inside the sockets of his eyes.) Then he came at me with one hand outstretched, The way he did in life once; but this time I struck the hand off brittle on the floor, And fell back from him on the floor myself. The finger-pieces slid in all directions. (Where did I see one of those pieces lately? Hand me my button-box- it must be there.) I sat up on the floor and shouted, 'Toffile, It's coming up to you.' It had its choice Of the door to the cellar or the hall. It took the hall door for the novelty, And set off briskly for so slow a thing, Stillgoing every which way in the joints, though, So that it looked like lightning or a scribble, >From the slap I had just now given its hand. I listened till it almost climbed the stairs >From the hall to the only finished bedroom, Before I got up to do anything; Then ran and shouted, 'Shut the bedroom door, Toffile, for my sake!' 'Company?' he said, 'Don't make me get up; I'm too warm in bed.' So lying forward weakly on the handrail I pushed myself upstairs, and in the light (The kitchen had been dark) I had to own I could see nothing. 'Toffile, I don't see it. It's with us in the room though. It's the bones.' 'What bones?' 'The cellar bones- out of the grave.' That made him throw his bare legs out of bed And sit up by me and take hold of me. I wanted to put out the light and see If I could see it, or else mow the room, With our arms at the level of our knees, And bring the chalk-pile down. 'I'll tell you what- It's looking for another door to try. The uncommonly deep snow has made him think Of his old song, The Wild Colonial Boy, He always used to sing along the tote-road. He's after an open door to get out-doors. Let's trap him with an open door up attic.' Toffile agreed to that, and sure enough, Almost the moment he was given an opening, The steps began to climb the attic stairs. I heard them. Toffile didn't seem to hear them. 'Quick !' I slammed to the door and held the knob. 'Toffile, get nails.' I made him nail the door shut, And push the headboard of the bed against it. Then we asked was there anything Up attic that we'd ever want again. The attic was less to us than the cellar. If the bones liked the attic, let them have it. Let them stay in the attic. When they sometimes Come down the stairs at night and stand perplexed Behind the door and headboard of the bed, Brushing their chalky skull with chalky fingers, With sounds like the dry rattling of a shutter, That's what I sit up in the dark to say- To no one any more since Toffile died. 2o3 Let them stay in the attic since they went there. I promised Toffile to be cruel to them For helping them be cruel once to him. SON: We think they had a grave down in the cellar. MOTHER: We know they had a grave down in the cellar. SON: We never could find out whose bones they were. MOTHER: Yes, we could too, son. Tell the truth for once. They were a man's his father killed for me. I mean a man he killed instead of me. The least I could do was to help dig their grave. We were about it one night in the cellar. Son knows the story: but 'twas not for him To tell the truth, suppose the time had come. Son looks surprised to see me end a lie We'd kept all these years between ourselves So as to have it ready for outsiders. But to-night I don't care enough to lie- I don't remember why I ever cared. Toffile, if he were here, I don't believe Could tell you why he ever cared himself- She hadn't found the finger-bone she wanted Among the buttons poured out in her lap. I verified the name next morning: Toffile. The rural letter-box said Toffile Lajway.

I let myself in at the kitchen door.'It's you,' she said. 'I can't get up. Forgive me Not answering your knock. I can no more Let people in than I can keep them out. I'm getting too old for my size, I tell them. My fingers are about all I've the use of So's to take any comfort. I can sew: I help out with this beadwork what I can.' 'That's a smart pair of pumps you're beading there. Who are they for?' 'You mean?- oh, for some miss. I can't keep track of other people's daughters. Lord, if I were to dream of everyone Whose shoes I primped to dance in!' 'And where's John?' 'Haven't you seen him? Strange what set you off To come to his house when he's gone to yours. You can't have passed each other. I know what: He must have changed his mind and gone to Garlands. He won't be long in that case. You can wait. Though what good you can be, or anyone- It's gone so far. You've heard? Estelle's run off.' 'Yes, what's it all about? When did she go?' 'Two weeks since.' 'She's in earnest, it appears.' 'I'm sure she won't come back. She's hiding somewhere. I don't know where myself. John thinks I do. He thinks I only have to say the word, And she'll come back. But, bless you, I'm her mother- I can't talk to her, and, Lord, if I could!' 'It will go hard with John. What will he do? He can't find anyone to take her place.' 'Oh, if you ask me that, what will he do? He gets some sort of bakeshop meals together, With me to sit and tell him everything, What's wanted and how much and where it is. But when I'm gone- of course I can't stay here: Estelle's to take me when she's settled down. He and I only hinder one another. I tell them they can't get me through the door, though: I've been built in here like a big church organ. We've been here fifteen years.' 'That's a long time To live together and then pull apart. How do you see him living when you're gone? Two of you out will leave an empty house.' 'I don't just see him living many years, Left here with nothing but the furniture. I hate to think of the old place when we're gone, With the brook going by below the yard, And no one here but hens blowing about. If he could sell the place, but then, he can't: No one will ever live on it again. It's too run down. This is the last of it. What I think he will do, is let things smash. He'll sort of swear the time away. He's awful! I never saw a man let family troubles Make so much difference in his man's affairs. He's just dropped everything. He's like a child. I blame his being brought up by his mother. He's got hay down that's been rained on three times. He hoed a little yesterday for me: I thought the growing things would do him good. Something went wrong. I saw him throw the hoe Sky-high with both hands. I can see it now- Come here- I'll show you- in that apple tree. That's no way for a man to do at his age: He's fifty-five, you know, if he's a day.' 'Aren't you afraid of him? What's that gun for?' 'Oh, that's been there for hawks since chicken-time. John Hall touch me! Not if he knows his friends. I'll say that for him, John's no threatener Like some men folk. No one's afraid of him; All is, he's made up his mind not to stand What he has got to stand.' 'Where is Estelle? Couldn't one talk to her? What does she say? You say you don't know where she is.' 'Nor want to! She thinks if it was bad to live with him, It must be right to leave him.' 'Which is wrong!' 'Yes, but he should have married her.' 'I know.' 'The strain's been too much for her all these years: I can't explain it any other way. It's different with a man, at least with John: He knows he's kinder than the run of men. Better than married ought to be as good As married- that's what he has always said. I know the way he's felt- but all the same!' 'I wonder why he doesn't marry her And end it.' 'Too late now: she wouldn't have him. He's given her time to think of something else. That's his mistake. The dear knows my interest Has been to keep the thing from breaking up. This is a good home: I don't ask for better. But when I've said, 'Why shouldn't they be married,' He'd say, 'Why should they?' no more words than that.' 'And after all why should they? John's been fair I take it. What was his was always hers. There was no quarrel about property.' 'Reason enough, there was no property. A friend or two as good as own the farm, Such as it is. It isn't worth the mortgage.' 'I mean Estelle has always held the purse.' 'The rights of that are harder to get at. I guess Estelle and I have filled the purse. 'Twas we let him have money, not he us. John's a bad farmer. I'm not blaming him. Take it year in, year out, he doesn't make much. We came here for a home for me, you know, Estelle to do the housework for the board Of both of us. But look how it turns out: She seems to have the housework, and besides, Half of the outdoor work, though as for that, He'd say she does it more because she likes it. You see our pretty things are all outdoors. Our hens and cows and pigs are always better Than folks like us have any business with. Farmers around twice as well off as we Haven't as good. They don't go with the farm. One thing you can't help liking about John, He's fond of nice things- too fond, some would say. But Estelle don't complain: she's like him there. She wants our hens to be the best there are. You never saw this room before a show, Full of lank, shivery, half-drowned birds In separate coops, having their plumage done. The smell of the wet feathers in the heat! You spoke of John's not being safe to stay with. You don't know what a gentle lot we are: We wouldn't hurt a hen! You ought to see us Moving a flock of hens from place to place. We're not allowed to take them upside down, All we can hold together by the legs. Two at a time's the rule, one on each arm, No matter how far and how many times We have to go.' 'You mean that's John's idea.' 'And we live up to it; or I don't know What childishness he wouldn't give way to. He manages to keep the upper hand On his own farm. He's boss. But as to hens: We fence our flowers in and the hens range. Nothing's too good for them. We say it pays. John likes to tell the offers he has had, Twenty for this cock, twenty-five for that. He never takes the money. If they're worth That much to sell, they're worth as much to keep. Bless you, it's all expense, though. Reach me down The little tin box on the cupboard shelf, The upper shelf, the tin box. That's the one. I'll show you. Here you are.' 'What's this?' 'A bill- For fifty dollars for one Langshang cock- Receipted. And the cock is in the yard.' 'Not in a glass case, then?' 'He'd need a tall one: He can eat off a barrel from the ground. He's been in a glass case, as you may say, The Crystal Palace, London. He's imported. John bought him, and we paid the bill with beads- Wampum, I call it. Mind, we don't complain. But you see, don't you, we take care of him.' 'And like it, too. It makes it all the worse.' 'It seems as if. And that's not all: he's helpless In ways that I can hardly tell you of. Sometimes he gets possessed to keep accounts To see where all the money goes so fast. You know how men will be ridiculous. But it's just fun the way he gets bedeviled- If he's untidy now, what will he be- - ? 'It makes it all the worse. You must be blind.' 'Estelle's the one. You needn't talk to me.' 'Can't you and I get to the root of it? What's the real trouble? What will satisfy her?' 'It's as I say: she's turned from him, that's all.' 'But why, when she's well off? Is it the neighbours, Being cut off from friends?' 'We have our friends. That isn't it. Folks aren't afraid of us.' 'She's let it worry her. You stood the strain, And you're her mother.' 'But I didn't always. I didn't relish it along at first. But I got wonted to it. And besides- John said I was too old to have grandchildren. But what's the use of talking when it's done? She won't come back- it's worse than that- she can't.' 'Why do you speak like that? What do you know? What do you mean?- she's done harm to herself?' 'I mean she's married- married someone else.' 'Oho, oho!' 'You don't believe me.' 'Yes, I do, Only too well. I knew there must be something! So that was what was back. She's bad, that's all!' 'Bad to get married when she had the chance?' 'Nonsense! See what's she done! But who, who- - ' 'Who'd marry her straight out of such a mess? Say it right out- no matter for her mother. The man was found. I'd better name no names. John himself won't imagine who he is.' 'Then it's all up. I think I'll get away. You'll be expecting John. I pity Estelle; I suppose she deserves some pity, too. You ought to have the kitchen to yourself To break it to him. You may have the job.' 'You needn't think you're going to get away. John's almost here. I've had my eye on someone Coming down Ryan's Hill. I thought 'twas him. Here he is now. This box! Put it away. And this bill.' 'What's the hurry? He'll unhitch.' 'No, he won't, either. He'll just drop the reins And turn Doll out to pasture, rig and all. She won't get far before the wheels hang up On something- there's no harm. See, there he is! My, but he looks as if he must have heard!' John threw the door wide but he didn't enter.'How are you, neighbour? Just the man I'm after. Isn't it Hell,' he said. 'I want to know. Come out here if you want to hear me talk. I'll talk to you, old woman, afterward. I've got some news that maybe isn't news. What are they trying to do to me, these two?' 'Do go along with him and stop his shouting.' She raised her voice against the closing door:'Who wants to hear your news, you- dreadful fool?'

What tree may not the fig be gathered from? The grape may not be gathered from the birch?It's all you know the grape, or know the birch.As a girl gathered from the birch myselfEqually with my weight in grapes, one autumn,I ought to know what tree the grape is fruit of.I was born, I suppose, like anyone,And grew to be a little boyish girlMy brother could not always leave at home.But that beginning was wiped out in fearThe day I swung suspended with the grapes,And was come after like EurydiceAnd brought down safely from the upper regions;And the life I live now's an extra lifeI can waste as I please on whom I please.So if you see me celebrate two birthdays,And give myself out of two different ages,One of them five years younger than I look-One day my brother led me to a gladeWhere a white birch he knew of stood alone,Wearing a thin head-dress of pointed leaves,And heavy on her heavy hair behind,Against her neck, an ornament of grapes.Grapes, I knew grapes from having seen them last year.One bunch of them, and there began to beBunches all round me growing in white birches,The way they grew round Leif the Lucky's German;Mostly as much beyond my lifted hands, though,As the moon used to seem when I was younger,And only freely to be had for climbing.My brother did the climbing; and at firstThrew me down grapes to miss and scatterAnd have to hunt for in sweet fern and hardhack;Which gave him some time to himself to eat,But not so much, perhaps, as a boy needed.So then, to make me wholly self-supporting,He climbed still higher and bent the tree to earthAnd put it in my hands to pick my own grapes.'Here, take a tree-top, I'll get down another.Hold on with all your might when I let go.'I said I had the tree. It wasn't true.The opposite was true. The tree had me.The minute it was left with me aloneIt caught me up as if I were the fishAnd it the fishpole. So I was translatedTo loud cries from my brother of 'Let go!Don't you know anything, you girl? Let go!'But I, with something of the baby gripAcquired ancestrally in just such treesWhen wilder mothers than our wildest nowHung babies out on branches by the handsTo dry or wash or tan, I don't know which,(You'll have to ask an evolutionist)-I held on uncomplainingly for life.My brother tried to make me laugh to help me.'What are you doing up there in those grapes?Don't be afraid. A few of them won't hurt you.I mean, they won't pick you if you don't them.'Much danger of my picking anything!By that time I was pretty well reducedTo a philosophy of hang-and-let-hang.'Now you know how it feels,' my brother said,'To be a bunch of fox-grapes, as they call them,That when it thinks it has escaped the foxBy growing where it shouldn't-on a birch,Where a fox wouldn't think to look for it-And if he looked and found it, couldn't reach it-Just then come you and I to gather it.Only you have the advantage of the grapesIn one way: you have one more stem to cling by,And promise more resistance to the picker.'One by one I lost off my hat and shoes,And still I clung. I let my head fall back,And shut my eyes against the sun, my earsAgainst my brother's nonsense; 'Drop,' he said,'I'll catch you in my arms. It isn't far.'(Stated in lengths of him it might not be.)'Drop or I'll shake the tree and shake you down.'Grim silence on my part as I sank lower,My small wrists stretching till they showed the banjo strings.'Why, if she isn't serious about it!Hold tight awhile till I think what to do.I'll bend the tree down and let you down by it.'I don't know much about the letting down;But once I felt ground with my stocking feetAnd the world came revolving back to me,I know I looked long at my curled-up fingers,Before I straightened them and brushed the bark off.My brother said: 'Don't you weigh anything?Try to weigh something next time, so you won'tBe run off with by birch trees into space.'It wasn't my not weighing anythingSo much as my not knowing anything-My brother had been nearer right before.I had not taken the first step in knowledge;I had not learned to let go with the hands,As still I have not learned to with the heart,And have no wish to with the heart-nor need,That I can see. The mind-is not the heart.I may yet live, as I know others live,To wish in vain to let go with the mind-Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells meThat I need learn to let go with the heart.

The west was getting out of gold,The breath of air had died of cold,When shoeing home across the white,I thought I saw a bird alight.In summer when I passed the placeI had to stop and lift my face;A bird with an angelic giftWas singing in it sweet and swift.No bird was singing in it now.A single leaf was on a bough,And that was all there was to seeIn going twice around the tree.From my advantage on a hillI judged that such a crystal chillWas only adding frost to snowAs gilt to gold that wouldn't show.A brush had left a crooked strokeOf what was either cloud or smokeFrom north to south across the blue;A piercing little star was through.

More than halfway up the passWas a spring with a broken drinking glass,And whether the farmer drank or notHis mare was sure to observe the spotBy cramping the wheel on a water-bar,turning her forehead with a star,And straining her ribs for a monster sigh;To which the farmer would make reply,'A sigh for every so many breath,And for every so many sigh a death.That's what I always tell my wifeIs the multiplication table of life.'The saying may be ever so true;But it's just the kind of a thing that youNor I, nor nobody else may say,Unless our purpose is doing harm,And then I know of no better wayTo close a road, abandon a farm,Reduce the births of the human race,And bring back nature in people's place.

The surest thing there is is we are riders,And though none too successful at it, guiders,Through everything presented, land and tideAnd now the very air, of what we ride.What is this talked-of mystery of birthBut being mounted bareback on the earth?We can just see the infant up astride,His small fist buried in the bushy hide.There is our wildest mount- a headless horse.But though it runs unbridled off its course,And all our blandishments would seem defied,We have ideas yet that we haven't tried.

As told to a childWhen we locked up the house at night,We always locked the flowers outsideAnd cut them off from window light.The time I dreamed the door was triedAnd brushed with buttons upon sleeves,The flowers were out there with the thieves.Yet nobody molested them!We did find one nasturtiumUpon the steps with bitten stem.I may have been to blame for that:I always thought it must have beenSome Hower I played with as I satAt dusk to watch the moon down early.

I met a lady from the South who said(You won't believe she said it, but she said it):'None of my family ever worked, or hadA thing to sell.' I don't suppose the workMuch matters. You may work for all of me.I've seen the time I've had to work myself.The having anything to sell is whatIs the disgrace in man or state or nation.I met a traveler from ArkansasWho boasted of his state as beautifulFor diamonds and apples. 'DiamondsAnd apples in commercial quantities?'I asked him, on my guard. 'Oh, yes,' he answered,Off his. The time was evening in the Pullman.I see the porter's made your bed,' I told him.I met a Californian who wouldTalk California—a state so blessed,He said, in climate, none bad ever died thereA natural death, and Vigilance CommitteesHad had to organize to stock the graveyardsAnd vindicate the state's humanity.'Just the way Stefansson runs on,' I murmured,'About the British Arctic. That's what comesOf being in the market with a climate.'I met a poet from another state,A zealot full of fluid inspiration,Who in the name of fluid inspiration,But in the best style of bad salesmanship,Angrily tried to male me write a protest(In verse I think) against the Volstead Act.He didn't even offer me a drinkUntil I asked for one to steady him.This is called having an idea to sell.It never could have happened in New Hampshire.The only person really soiled with tradeI ever stumbled on in old New HampshireWas someone who had just come back ashamedFrom selling things in California.He'd built a noble mansard roof with ballsOn turrets, like Constantinople, deepIn woods some ten miles from a railroad station,As if to put forever out of mindThe hope of being, as we say, received.I found him standing at the close of dayInside the threshold of his open barn,Like a lone actor on a gloomy stage—And recognized him, through the iron grayIn which his face was muffled to the eyes,As an old boyhood friend, and once indeedA drover with me on the road to Brighton.His farm was 'grounds,' and not a farm at all;His house among the local sheds and shantiesRose like a factor's at a trading station.And be was rich, and I was still a rascal.I couldn't keep from asking impolitely,Where bad he been and what had he been doing?How did he get so? (Rich was understood.)In dealing in 'old rags' in San Francisco.Ob, it was terrible as well could be.We both of us turned over in our graves.Just specimens is all New Hampshire has,One each of everything as in a showcase,Which naturally she doesn't care to sell.She had one President. (Pronounce him Purse,And make the most of it for better or worse.He's your one chance to score against the state.)She had one Daniel Webster. He was allThe Daniel Webster ever was or shall be.She had the Dartmouth' needed to produce him.I call her old. She has one familyWhose claim is good to being settled hereBefore the era of colonization,And before that of exploration even.John Smith remarked them as be coasted by,Dangling their legs and fishing off a wharfAt the Isles of Shoals, and satisfied himselfThey weren't Red Indians but veritablePre-primitives of the white race, dawn people,Like those who furnished Adam's sons with wives;However uninnocent they may have beenIn being there so early in our history.They'd been there then a hundred years or more.Pity he didn't ask what they were up toAt that date with a wharf already built,And take their name. They've since told me their name—Today an honored one in Nottingham.As for what they were up to more than fishing—Suppose they weren't behaving Puritanly,The hour bad not yet struck for being good,Mankind had not yet gone on the Sabbatical.It became an explorer of the deepNot to explore too deep in others' business.Did you but know of him, New Hampshire hasOne real reformer who would change the worldSo it would be accepted by two classes,Artists the minute they set up as artists,Before, that is, they are themselves accepted,And boys the minute they get out of college.I can't help thinking those are tests to go by.And she has one I don't know what to call him,Who comes from Philadelphia every yearWith a great flock of chickens of rare breedsHe wants to give the educationalAdvantages of growing almost wildUnder the watchful eye of hawk and eagle Dorkings because they're spoken of by Chaucer,Sussex because they're spoken of by Herrick.She has a touch of gold. New Hampshire gold—You may have heard of it. I had a farmOffered me not long since up Berlin wayWith a mine on it that was worked for gold;But not gold in commercial quantities,Just enough gold to make the engagement ringsAnd marriage rings of those who owned the farm.What gold more innocent could one have asked for?One of my children ranging after rocksLately brought home from Andover or CanaanA specimen of beryl with a traceOf radium. I know with radiumThe trace would have to be the merest trace To be below the threshold of commercial;But trust New Hampshire not to have enoughOf radium or anything to sell.A specimen of everything, I said.She has one witch—old style. She lives in Colebrook.(The only other witch I ever metWas lately at a cut-glass dinner in Boston.There were four candles and four people present.The witch was young, and beautiful (new style),And open-minded. She was free to questionHer gift for reading letters locked in boxes.Why was it so much greater when the boxesWere metal than it was when they were wooden?It made the world seem so mysterious.The S'ciety for Psychical ResearchWas cognizant. Her husband was worth millions.I think he owned some shares in Harvard College.)New Hampshire used to have at SalemA company we called the White Corpuscles,Whose duty was at any hour of nightTo rush in sheets and fool's caps where they smelledA thing the least bit doubtfully perscentedAnd give someone the Skipper Ireson's Ride.One each of everything as in a showcase.More than enough land for a specimenYou'll say she has, but there there enters inSomething else to protect her from herself.There quality makes up for quantity.Not even New Hampshire farms are much for sale.The farm I made my home on in the mountains 1 had to take by force rather than buy.I caught the owner outdoors by himselfRaking.up after winter, and I said,"I'm going to put you off this farm: I want it.'"Where are you going to put me? In the road?""I'm going to put you on the farm next to it.""Why won't the farm next to it do for you?''I like this better.' It was really better.Apples? New Hampshire has them, but unsprayed,With no suspicion in stern end or blossom end Of vitriol or arsenate of lead,And so not good for anything but cider.Her unpruned grapes are flung like lariatsFar up the birches out of reach of man.A state producing precious metals, stones,And—writing; none of these except perhapsThe precious literature in quantityOr quality to worry the producerAbout disposing of it. Do you know,Considering the market, there are morePoems produced than any other thing?No wonder poets sometimes have to seemSo much more businesslike than businessmen.Their wares are so much harder to get rid of.She's one of the two best states in the Union.Vermont's the other. And the two have beenYokefellows in the sap yoke from of oldIn many Marches. And they lie like wedges,Thick end to thin end and thin end to thick end,And are a figure of the way the strongOf mind and strong of arm should fit together,One thick where one is thin and vice versa.New Hampshire raises the Connecticut In a trout hatchery near Canada,But soon divides the river with Vermont.Both are delightful states for their absurdlySmall towns—Lost Nation, Bungey, Muddy Boo,Poplin, Still Corners (so called not becauseThe place is silent all day long, nor yetBecause it boasts a whisky still—becauseIt set out once to be a city and stillIs only corners, crossroads in a wood).And I remember one whose name appearedBetween the pictures on a movie screenElection night once in Franconia,When everything had gone RepublicanAnd Democrats were sore in need of comfort:Easton goes Democratic, Wilson 4Hughes 2. And everybody to the saddestLaughed the loud laugh the big laugh at the little.New York (five million) laughs at Manchester,Manchester (sixty or seventy thousand) laughsAt Littleton (four thousand), LittletonLaughs at Franconia (seven hundred), andFranconia laughs, I fear—-did laugh that night­- At Easton. What has Easton left to laugh at,And like the actress exclaim 'Oh, my God' at?There's Bungey; and for Bungey there are towns,Whole townships named but without population.Anything I can say about New HampshireWill serve almost as well about Vermont,Excepting that they differ in their mountains.The Vermont mountains stretch extended straight;New Hampshire mountains Curl up in a coil.I had been coming to New Hampshire mountains.And here I am and what am I to say?Here first my theme becomes embarrassing.Emerson said, 'The God who made New HampshireTaunted the lofty land with little men.'Anotner Massachusetts poet said, 'I go no more to summer in New Hampshire.I've given up my summer place in Dublin.'But when I asked to know what ailed New Hampshire,She said she couldn't stand the people in it,The little men (it's Massachusetts speaking). And when I asked to know what ailed the people,She said, 'Go read your own books and find out.'I may as well confess myself the authorOf several books against the world in general.To take them as against a special state Or even nation's to restrict my meaning.I'm what is called a sensibilitist,Or otherwise an environmentalist.I refuse to adapt myself a miteTo any change from hot to cold, from wet To dry, from poor to rich, or back again.I make a virtue of my sufferingFrom nearly everything that goes on round me.In other words, I know wherever I am,Being the creature of literature I am, 1 sball not lack for pain to keep me awake.Kit Marlowe taught me how to say my prayers:'Why, this is Hell, nor am I out of it.'Samoa, Russia, Ireland I complain of,No less than England, France, and Italy. Because I wrote my novels in New HampshireIs no proof that I aimed them at New Hampshire.When I left Massachusetts years agoBetween two days, the reason why I soughtNew Hampshire, not Connecticut,Rhode Island, New York, or Vermont was this:Where I was living then, New Hampshire offeredThe nearest boundary to escape across.I hadn't an illusion in my handbagAbout the people being better thereThan those I left behind. I thought they weren't.I thought they couldn't be. And yet they were.I'd sure had no such friends in MassachusettsAs Hall of Windham, Gay of Atkinson,Bartlett of Raymond (now of Colorado),Harris of Derry, and Lynch of Bethlehem.The glorious bards of Massachusetts seemTo want to make New Hampshire people over.They taunt the lofty land with little men.I don't know what to say about the people.For art's sake one could almost wish them worseRather than better. How are we to writeThe Russian novel in AmericaAs long as life goes so unterribly?There is the pinch from which our only outcry In literature to date is heard to come.We get what little misery we canOut of not having cause for misery.It makes the guild of novel writers sickTo be expected to be DostoievskisOn nothing worse than too much luck and comfort.This is not sorrow, though; it's just the vapors,And recognized as such in Russia itselfUnder the new regime, and so forbidden.If well it is with Russia, then feel free To say so or be stood against the wallAnd shot. It's Pollyanna now or death.This, then, is the new freedom we hear tell of;And very sensible. No state can buildA literature that shall at once be soundAnd sad on a foundation of well-being.To show the level of intelligenceAmong us: it was just a Warren farmerWhose horse had pulled him short up in the roadBy me, a stranger. This is what he said,From nothing but embarrassment and wantOf anything more sociable to say:'You hear those bound dogs sing on Moosilauke?Well, they remind me of the hue and cryWe've heard against the Mid - Victorians And never rightly understood till BryanRetired from politics and joined the chorus.The matter with the Mid-VictoriansSeems to have been a man named Joh n L. Darwin.''Go 'long,' I said to him, he to his horse.I knew a man who failing as a farmerBurned down his farmhouse for the fire insurance,And spent the proceeds on a telescopeTo satisfy a lifelong curiosityAbout our place among the infinities.And how was that for otherworldliness?If I must choose which I would elevate —The people or the already lofty mountainsI'd elevate the already lofty mountainsThe only fault I find with old New Hampshire Is that her mountains aren't quite high enough.I was not always so; I've come to be so.How, to my sorrow, how have I attainedA height from which to look down criticalOn mountains? What has given me assuranceTo say what height becomes New Hampshire mountains,Or any mountains? Can it be some strengthI feel, as of an earthquake in my back,To heave them higher to the morning star?Can it be foreign travel in the Alps?Or having seen and credited a momentThe solid molding of vast peaks of cloudBehind the pitiful realityOf Lincoln, Lafayette, and Liberty?Or some such sense as says bow high shall jetThe fountain in proportion to the basin?No, none of these has raised me to my throneOf intellectual dissatisfaction,But the sad accident of having seenOur actual mountains given in a mapOf early times as twice the height they are—Ten thousand feet instead of only five—Which shows how sad an accident may be.Five thousand is no longer high enough.Whereas I never had a good ideaAbout improving people in the world,Here I am overfertile in suggestion,And cannot rest from planning day or nightHow high I'd thrust the peaks in summer snowTo tap the upper sky and draw a flowOf frosty night air on the vale belowDown from the stars to freeze the dew as starry.The more the sensibilitist I amThe more I seem to want my mountains wild;The way the wiry gang-boss liked the logjam. After he'd picked the lock and got it started,He dodged a log that lifted like an armAgainst the sky to break his back for him,Then came in dancing, skipping with his lifeAcross the roar and chaos, and the words We saw him say along the zigzag journeyWere doubtless as the words we heard him sayOn coming nearer: 'Wasn't she an i-dealSon-of-a-bitch? You bet she was an i-deal.'For all her mountains fall a little short,Her people not quite short enough for Art,She's still New Hampshire; a most restful state.Lately in converse with a New York alecAbout the new school of the pseudo-phallic,I found myself in a close corner whereI bad to make an almost funny choice.'Choose you which you will be—a prude, or puke,Mewling and puking in the public arms.''Me for the hills where I don't have to choose."'But if you bad to choose, which would you be?' 1 wouldn't be a prude afraid of nature.I know a man who took a double axAnd went alone against a grove of trees;But his heart failing him, he dropped the axAnd ran for shelter quoting Matthew Arnold:''Nature is cruel, man is sick of blood':There s been enough shed without shedding mine.Remember Birnam Wood! The wood's in flux!'He had a special terror of the fluxThat showed itself in dendrophobia.The only decent tree had been to millAnd educated into boards, be said.He knew too well for any earthly useThe line where man leaves off and nature starts.And never overstepped it save in dreams.He stood on the safe side of the line talking—Which is sheer Matthew Arnoldism,The cult of one who owned himself 'a foiledCircuitous wanderer,' and 'took dejectedlyHis seat upon the intellectual throne'—Agreed in 'frowning on these improvisedAltars the woods are full of nowadays,Again as in the days when Ahaz sinnedBy worship under green trees in the open.Scarcely a mile but that I come on one,A black-checked stone and stick of rain-washed charcoal.Even to say the groves were God's first templesComes too near to Ahaz' sin for safety.Nothing not built with hands of course is sacred.But here is not a question of what's sacred;Rather of what to face or run away from.I'd hate to be a runaway from nature.And neither would I choose to be a pukeWho cares not what be does in company,And when he can't do anything, falls backOn words, and tries his worst to make words speakLouder than actions, and sometimes achieves it.It seems a narrow choice the age insists on8ow about being a good Greek, for instance)That course, they tell me, isn't offered this year.'Come, but this isn't choosing—puke or prude?'Well, if I have to choose one or the other,I choose to be a plain New Hampshire farmerWith an income in cash of, say, a thousand(From, say, a publisher in New York City). It's restful to arrive at a decision,And restful just to think about New Hampshire.At present I am living in Vermont.

Here further up the mountain slopeThan there was every any hope,My father built, enclosed a spring,Strung chains of wall round everything,Subdued the growth of earth to grass,And brought our various lives to pass.A dozen girls and boys we were.The mountain seemed to like the stir,And made of us a little while- With always something in her smile.Today she wouldn't know our name.(No girl's, of course, has stayed the same.)The mountain pushed us off her knees.And now her lap is full of trees.

The three stood listening to a fresh accessOf wind that caught against the house a moment,Gulped snow, and then blew free again-the ColesDressed, but dishevelled from some hours of sleep,Meserve belittled in the great skin coat he wore.Meserve was first to speak. He pointed backwardOver his shoulder with his pipe-stem, saying,'You can just see it glancing off the roofMaking a great scroll upward toward the sky,Long enough for recording all our names on.-I think I'll just call up my wife and tell herI'm here-so far-and starting on again.I'll call her softly so that if she's wiseAnd gone to sleep, she needn't wake to answer.'Three times he barely stirred the bell, then listened.'Why, Lett, still up? Lett, I'm at Cole's. I'm late.I called you up to say Good-night from hereBefore I went to say Good-morning there.-I thought I would.- I know, but, Lett-I know-I could, but what's the sense? The rest won't beSo bad.- Give me an hour for it.- Ho, ho,Three hours to here! But that was all up hill;The rest is down.- Why no, no, not a wallow:They kept their heads and took their time to itLike darlings, both of them. They're in the barn.-My dear, I'm coming just the same. I didn'tCall you to ask you to invite me home.-'He lingered for some word she wouldn't say,Said it at last himself, 'Good-night,' and then,Getting no answer, closed the telephone.The three stood in the lamplight round the tableWith lowered eyes a moment till he said,'I'll just see how the horses are.''Yes, do,'Both the Coles said together. Mrs. ColeAdded: 'You can judge better after seeing.-I want you here with me, Fred. Leave him here,Brother Meserve. You know to find your wayOut through the shed.''I guess I know my way,I guess I know where I can find my nameCarved in the shed to tell me who I amIf it don't tell me where I am. I usedTo play-''You tend your horses and come back.Fred Cole, you're going to let him!''Well, aren't you?How can you help yourself?''I called him Brother.Why did I call him that?''It's right enough.That's all you ever heard him called round here.He seems to have lost off his Christian name.''Christian enough I should call that myself.He took no notice, did he? Well, at leastI didn't use it out of love of him,The dear knows. I detest the thought of himWith his ten children under ten years old.I hate his wretched little Racker Sect,All's ever I heard of it, which isn't much.But that's not saying-Look, Fred Cole, it's twelve,Isn't it, now? He's been here half an hour.He says he left the village store at nine.Three hours to do four miles-a mile an hourOr not much better. Why, it doesn't seemAs if a man could move that slow and move.Try to think what he did with all that time.And three miles more to go!''Don't let him go.Stick to him, Helen. Make him answer you.That sort of man talks straight on all his lifeFrom the last thing he said himself, stone deafTo anything anyone else may say.I should have thought, though, you could make him hear you.''What is he doing out a night like this?Why can't he stay at home?''He had to preach.''It's no night to be out.''He may be small,He may be good, but one thing's sure, he's tough.''And strong of stale tobacco.''He'll pull through.''You only say so. Not another houseOr shelter to put into from this placeTo theirs. I'm going to call his wife again.''Wait and he may. Let's see what he will do.Let's see if he will think of her again.But then I doubt he's thinking of himselfHe doesn't look on it as anything.''He shan't go-there!''It is a night, my dear.''One thing: he didn't drag God into it.''He don't consider it a case for God.''You think so, do you? You don't know the kind.He's getting up a miracle this minute.Privately-to himself, right now, he's thinkingHe'll make a case of it if he succeeds,But keep still if he fails.''Keep still all over.He'll be dead-dead and buried.''Such a trouble!Not but I've every reason not to careWhat happens to him if it only takesSome of the sanctimonious conceitOut of one of those pious scalawags.''Nonsense to that! You want to see him safe.''You like the runt.''Don't you a little?''Well,I don't like what he's doing, which is whatYou like, and like him for.''Oh, yes you do.You like your fun as well as anyone;Only you women have to put these airs onTo impress men. You've got us so ashamedOf being men we can't look at a good fightBetween two boys and not feel bound to stop it.Let the man freeze an ear or two, I say.-He's here. I leave him all to you. Go inAnd save his life.- All right, come in, Meserve.Sit down, sit down. How did you find the horses?''Fine, fine.''And ready for some more? My wife hereSays it won't do. You've got to give it up.''Won't you to please me? Please! If I say please?Mr. Meserve, I'll leave it to your wife.What did your wife say on the telephone?'Meserve seemed to heed nothing but the lampOr something not far from it on the table.By straightening out and lifting a forefinger,He pointed with his hand from where it layLike a white crumpled spider on his knee:'That leaf there in your open book! It movedJust then, I thought. It's stood erect like that,There on the table, ever since I came,Trying to turn itself backward or forward,I've had my eye on it to make out which;If forward, then it's with a friend's impatience-You see I know-to get you on to thingsIt wants to see how you will take, if backwardIt's from regret for something you have passedAnd failed to see the good of. Never mind,Things must expect to come in front of usA many times-I don't say just how many-That varies with the things-before we see them.One of the lies would make it out that nothingEver presents itself before us twice.Where would we be at last if that were so?Our very life depends on everything'sRecurring till we answer from within.The thousandth time may prove the charm.- That leaf!It can't turn either way. It needs the wind's help.But the wind didn't move it if it moved.It moved itself. The wind's at naught in here.It couldn't stir so sensitively poisedA thing as that. It couldn't reach the lampTo get a puff of black smoke from the flame,Or blow a rumple in the collie's coat.You make a little foursquare block of air,Quiet and light and warm, in spite of allThe illimitable dark and cold and storm,And by so doing give these three, lamp, dog,And book-leaf, that keep near you, their repose;Though for all anyone can tell, reposeMay be the thing you haven't, yet you give it.So false it is that what we haven't we can't give;So false, that what we always say is true.I'll have to turn the leaf if no one else will.It won't lie down. Then let it stand. Who cares?''I shouldn't want to hurry you, Meserve,But if you're going- Say you'll stay, you know?But let me raise this curtain on a scene,And show you how it's piling up against you.You see the snow-white through the white of frost?Ask Helen how far up the sash it's climbedSince last we read the gage.''It looks as ifSome pallid thing had squashed its features flatAnd its eyes shut with overeagernessTo see what people found so interestingIn one another, and had gone to sleepOf its own stupid lack of understanding,Or broken its white neck of mushroom stuffShort off, and died against the window-pane.''Brother Meserve, take care, you'll scare yourselfMore than you will us with such nightmare talk.It's you it matters to, because it's youWho have to go out into it alone.''Let him talk, Helen, and perhaps he'll stay.''Before you drop the curtain-I'm reminded:You recollect the boy who came out hereTo breathe the air one winter-had a roomDown at the Averys'? Well, one sunny morningAfter a downy storm, he passed our placeAnd found me banking up the house with snow.And I was burrowing in deep for warmth,Piling it well above the window-sills.The snow against the window caught his eye.'Hey, that's a pretty thought'-those were his words.'So you can think it's six feet deep outside,While you sit warm and read up balanced rations.You can't get too much winter in the winter.'Those were his words. And he went home and allBut banked the daylight out of Avery's windows.Now you and I would go to no such length.At the same time you can't deny it makesIt not a mite worse, sitting here, we three,Playing our fancy, to have the snowline runSo high across the pane outside. There whereThere is a sort of tunnel in the frostMore like a tunnel than a hole-way downAt the far end of it you see a stirAnd quiver like the frayed edge of the driftBlown in the wind. I like that-I like that.Well, now I leave you, people.''Come, Meserve,We thought you were deciding not to go-The ways you found to say the praise of comfortAnd being where you are. You want to stay.''I'll own it's cold for such a fall of snow.This house is frozen brittle, all exceptThis room you sit in. If you think the windSounds further off, it's not because it's dying;You're further under in the snow-that's all-And feel it less. Hear the soft bombs of dustIt bursts against us at the chimney mouth,And at the eaves. I like it from insideMore than I shall out in it. But the horsesAre rested and it's time to say good-night,And let you get to bed again. Good-night,Sorry I had to break in on your sleep.''Lucky for you you did. Lucky for youYou had us for a half-way stationTo stop at. If you were the kind of manPaid heed to women, you'd take my adviceAnd for your family's sake stay where you are.But what good is my saying it over and over?You've done more than you had a right to thinkYou could do-now. You know the risk you takeIn going on.''Our snow-storms as a ruleAren't looked on as man-killers, and althoughI'd rather be the beast that sleeps the sleepUnder it all, his door sealed up and lost,Than the man fighting it to keep above it,Yet think of the small birds at roost and notIn nests. Shall I be counted less than they are?Their bulk in water would be frozen rockIn no time out to-night. And yet to-morrowThey will come budding boughs from tree to treeFlirting their wings and saying Chickadee,As if not knowing what you meant by the word storm.''But why when no one wants you to go on?Your wife-she doesn't want you to. We don't,And you yourself don't want to. Who else is there?''Save us from being cornered by a woman.Well, there's'-She told Fred afterward that inThe pause right there, she thought the dreaded wordWas coming, 'God.' But no, he only said'Well, there's-the storm. That says I must go on.That wants me as a war might if it came.Ask any man.'He threw her that as somethingTo last her till he got outside the door.He had Cole with him to the barn to see him off.When Cole returned he found his wife still standingBeside the table near the open book,Not reading it.'Well, what kind of a manDo you call that?' she said.'He had the giftOf words, or is it tongues, I ought to say?''Was ever such a man for seeing likeness?''Or disregarding people's civil questions-What? We've found out in one hour more about himThan we had seeing him pass by in the roadA thousand times. If that's the way he preaches!You didn't think you'd keep him after all.Oh, I'm not blaming you. He didn't leave youMuch say in the matter, and I'm just as gladWe're not in for a night of him. No sleepIf he had stayed. The least thing set him going.It's quiet as an empty church without him.''But how much better off are we as it is?We'll have to sit here till we know he's safe.''Yes, I suppose you'll want to, but I shouldn't.He knows what he can do, or he wouldn't try.Get into bed I say, and get some rest.He won't come back, and if he telephones,It won't be for an hour or two.''Well then- We can't be any help by sitting hereAnd living his fight through with him, I suppose.'- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Cole had been telephoning in the dark.Mrs. Cole's voice came from an inner room:'Did she call you or you call her?''She me.You'd better dress: you won't go back to bed.We must have been asleep: it's three and after.''Had she been ringing long? I'll get my wrapper.I want to speak to her.''All she said was,He hadn't come and had he really started.''She knew he had, poor thing, two hours ago.''He had the shovel. He'll have made a fight.''Why did I ever let him leave this house!''Don't begin that. You did the best you couldTo keep him-though perhaps you didn't quiteConceal a wish to see him show the spunkTo disobey you. Much his wife'll thank you.''Fred, after all I said! You shan't make outThat it was any way but what it was.Did she let on by any word she saidShe didn't thank me?''When I told her 'Gone,''Well then,' she said, and 'Well then'-like a threat.And then her voice came scraping slow: 'Oh, you,Why did you let him go'?''Asked why we let him?You let me there. I'll ask her why she let him.She didn't dare to speak when he was here.Their number's-twenty-one? The thing won't work.Someone's receiver's down. The handle stumbles.The stubborn thing, the way it jars your arm!It's theirs. She's dropped it from her hand and gone.''Try speaking. Say 'Hello'!''Hello. Hello.''What do you hear?''I hear an empty room-You know-it sounds that way. And yes, I hear-I think I hear a clock-and windows rattling.No step though. If she's there she's sitting down.''Shout, she may hear you.''Shouting is no good.''Keep speaking then.''Hello. Hello. Hello.You don't suppose-? She wouldn't go out doors?''I'm half afraid that's just what she might do.''And leave the children?''Wait and call again.You can't hear whether she has left the doorWide open and the wind's blown out the lampAnd the fire's died and the room's dark and cold?''One of two things, either she's gone to bedOr gone out doors.''In which case both are lost.Do you know what she's like? Have you ever met her?It's strange she doesn't want to speak to us.''Fred, see if you can hear what I hear. Come.''A clock maybe.''Don't you hear something else?''Not talking.''No.''Why, yes, I hear-what is it?''What do you say it is?''A baby's crying!Frantic it sounds, though muffled and far off.''Its mother wouldn't let it cry like that,Not if she's there.''What do you make of it?''There's only one thing possible to make,That is, assuming-that she has gone out.Of course she hasn't though.' They both sat downHelpless. 'There's nothing we can do till morning.''Fred, I shan't let you think of going out.''Hold on.' The double bell began to chirp.They started up. Fred took the telephone.'Hello, Meserve. You're there, then!-And your wife?Good! Why I asked-she didn't seem to answer.He says she went to let him in the barn.-We're glad. Oh, say no more about it, man.Drop in and see us when you're passing.''Well,She has him then, though what she wants him forI don't see.''Possibly not for herself.Maybe she only wants him for the children.''The whole to-do seems to have been for nothing.What spoiled our night was to him just his fun.What did he come in for?-To talk and visit?Thought he'd just call to tell us it was snowing.If he thinks he is going to make our houseA halfway coffee house 'twixt town and nowhere- ''I thought you'd feel you'd been too much concerned.''You think you haven't been concerned yourself.''If you mean he was inconsiderateTo rout us out to think for him at midnightAnd then take our advice no more than nothing,Why, I agree with you. But let's forgive him.We've had a share in one night of his life.What'll you bet he ever calls again?'

When I spread out my hand here today,I catch no more than a rayTo feel of between thumb and fingers;No lasting effect of it lingers.There was one time and only the oneWhen dust really took in the sun;And from that one intake of fireAll creatures still warmly suspire.And if men have watched a long timeAnd never seen sun-smitten slimeAgain come to life and crawl off,We not be too ready to scoff.God once declared he was trueAnd then took the veil and withdrew,And remember how final a hushThen descended of old on the bush.God once spoke to people by name.The sun once imparted its flame.One impulse persists as our breath;The other persists as our faith.

All crying, 'We will go with you, O Wind!'The foliage follow him, leaf and stem;But a sleep oppresses them as they go,And they end by bidding them as they go,And they end by bidding him stay with them.Since ever they flung abroad in springThe leaves had promised themselves this flight,Who now would fain seek sheltering wall,Or thicket, or hollow place for the night.And now they answer his summoning blastWith an ever vaguer and vaguer stir,Or at utmost a little reluctant whirlThat drops them no further than where they were.I only hope that when I am freeAs they are free to go in questOf the knowledge beyond the bounds of lifeIt may not seem better to me to rest.

A winter garden in an alder swamp,Where conies now come out to sun and romp,As near a paradise as it can beAnd not melt snow or start a dormant tree.It lifts existence on a plane of snowOne level higher than the earth below,One level nearer heaven overhead,And last year's berries shining scarlet red.It lifts a gaunt luxuriating beastWhere he can stretch and hold his highest featOn some wild apple tree's young tender bark,What well may prove the year's high girdle mark.So near to paradise all pairing ends:Here loveless birds now flock as winter friends,Content with bud-inspecting. They presumeTo say which buds are leaf and which are bloom.A feather-hammer gives a double knock.This Eden day is done at two o'clock.An hour of winter day might seem too shortTo make it worth life's while to wake and sport.