Part 22 (1/2)

The End

My father got me strong and straight and slim, And I give thanks to him; My mother bore me glad and sound and sweet, -- I kiss her feet.

But now, with me, their generation fails, And nevermore avails To cast through me the ancient mould again, Such women and men.

I have no son, whose life of flesh and fire Sprang from my splendid sire, No daughter for whose soul my mother's flesh Wrought raiment fresh.

Life's venerable rhythms like a flood Beat in my brain and blood, Crying from all the generations past, ”Is this the last?”

And I make answer to my haughty dead, Who made me, heart and head, ”Even the sunbeams falter, flicker and bend -- I am the end.”

The Hill Wife. [Robert Frost]

Loneliness

(Her Word)

One ought not to have to care So much as you and I Care when the birds come round the house To seem to say good-bye;

Or care so much when they come back With whatever it is they sing; The truth being we are as much Too glad for the one thing

As we are too sad for the other here -- With birds that fill their b.r.e.a.s.t.s But with each other and themselves And their built or driven nests.

House Fear

Always -- I tell you this they learned -- Always at night when they returned To the lonely house from far away, To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray, They learned to rattle the lock and key To give whatever might chance to be Warning and time to be off in flight: And preferring the out- to the in-door night, They learned to leave the house-door wide Until they had lit the lamp inside.

The Oft-Repeated Dream

She had no saying dark enough For the dark pine that kept Forever trying the window-latch Of the room where they slept.

The tireless but ineffectual hands That with every futile pa.s.s Made the great tree seem as a little bird Before the mystery of gla.s.s!

It never had been inside the room, And only one of the two Was afraid in an oft-repeated dream Of what the tree might do.