Mountain Interval Part 4

THE HILL WIFE

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 SMILE

(_Her Word_)

I didn't like the way he went away.

That smile! It never came of being gay.

Still he smiled--did you see him?--I was sure!

Perhaps because we gave him only bread And the wretch knew from that that we were poor.

Perhaps because he let us give instead Of seizing from us as he might have seized.

Perhaps he mocked at us for being wed, Or being very young (and he was pleased To have a vision of us old and dead).

I wonder how far down the road he's got.

He's watching from the woods as like as not.

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.

THE IMPULSE

It was too lonely for her there, And too wild, And since there were but two of them, And no child,

And work was little in the house, She was free, And followed where he furrowed field, Or felled tree.

She rested on a log and tossed The fresh chips, With a song only to herself On her lips.

And once she went to break a bough Of black alder.

She strayed so far she scarcely heard When he called her--

And didn't answer--didn't speak-- Or return.

She stood, and then she ran and hid In the fern.

He never found her, though he looked Everywhere, And he asked at her mother's house Was she there.

Sudden and swift and light as that The ties gave, And he learned of finalities Besides the grave.

THE BONFIRE

"Oh, let's go up the hill and scare ourselves, As reckless as the best of them to-night, By setting fire to all the brush we piled With pitchy hands to wait for rain or snow.

Oh, let's not wait for rain to make it safe.

The pile is ours: we dragged it bough on bough Down dark converging paths between the pines.

Let's not care what we do with it to-night.

Divide it? No! But burn it as one pile The way we piled it. And let's be the talk Of people brought to windows by a light Thrown from somewhere against their wall-paper.

Rouse them all, both the free and not so free With saying what they'd like to do to us For what they'd better wait till we have done.

Let's all but bring to life this old volcano, If that is what the mountain ever was-- And scare ourselves. Let wild fire loose we will...."

"And scare you too?" the children said together.

"Why wouldn't it scare me to have a fire Begin in smudge with ropy smoke and know That still, if I repent, I may recall it, But in a moment not: a little spurt Of burning fatness, and then nothing but The fire itself can put it out, and that By burning out, and before it burns out It will have roared first and mixed sparks with stars, And sweeping round it with a flaming sword, Made the dim trees stand back in wider circle-- Done so much and I know not how much more I mean it shall not do if I can bind it.

Well if it doesn't with its draft bring on A wind to blow in earnest from some quarter, As once it did with me upon an April.

The breezes were so spent with winter blowing They seemed to fail the bluebirds under them Short of the perch their languid flight was toward; And my flame made a pinnacle to heaven As I walked once round it in possession.

But the wind out of doors--you know the saying.

There came a gust. You used to think the trees Made wind by fanning since you never knew It blow but that you saw the trees in motion.

Something or someone watching made that gust.

It put the flame tip-down and dabbed the gra.s.s Of over-winter with the least tip-touch Your tongue gives salt or sugar in your hand.

The place it reached to blackened instantly.

The black was all there was by day-light, That and the merest curl of cigarette smoke-- And a flame slender as the hepaticas, Blood-root, and violets so soon to be now.

But the black spread like black death on the ground, And I think the sky darkened with a cloud Like winter and evening coming on together.

There were enough things to be thought of then.

Where the field stretches toward the north And setting sun to Hyla brook, I gave it To flames without twice thinking, where it verges Upon the road, to flames too, though in fear They might find fuel there, in withered brake, Gra.s.s its full length, old silver golden-rod, And alder and grape vine entanglement, To leap the dusty deadline. For my own I took what front there was beside. I knelt And thrust hands in and held my face away.

Fight such a fire by rubbing not by beating.

A board is the best weapon if you have it.

I had my coat. And oh, I knew, I knew, And said out loud, I couldn't bide the smother And heat so close in; but the thought of all The woods and town on fire by me, and all The town turned out to fight for me--that held me.

I trusted the brook barrier, but feared The road would fail; and on that side the fire Died not without a noise of crackling wood-- Of something more than tinder-gra.s.s and weed-- That brought me to my feet to hold it back By leaning back myself, as if the reins Were round my neck and I was at the plough.

I won! But I'm sure no one ever spread Another color over a tenth the s.p.a.ce That I spread coal-black over in the time It took me. Neighbors coming home from town Couldn't believe that so much black had come there While they had backs turned, that it hadn't been there When they had pa.s.sed an hour or so before Going the other way and they not seen it.

They looked about for someone to have done it.

But there was no one. I was somewhere wondering Where all my weariness had gone and why I walked so light on air in heavy shoes In spite of a scorched Fourth-of-July feeling.

Why wouldn't I be scared remembering that?"

"If it scares you, what will it do to us?"