A solitude made more intense
By dreary-voiced elements,

The shrieking of the mindless wind,
The moaning tree-boughs swaying blind,
5 And on the glass the unmeaning beat
Of ghostly finger-tips of sleet.

As night drew on, and, from the crest Of wooded knolls that ridged the west, The sun, a snow-blown traveller, sank 10 From sight beneath the smothering bank, We piled, with care, our nightly stack Of wood against the chimney-back,The oaken log, green, huge, and thick, And on its top the stout back-stick; 15 The knotty forestick laid apart,

And filled between with curious art The ragged brush; then, hovering near, We watched the first red blaze appear, Heard the sharp crackle, caught the gleam 20 Of whitewashed wall and sagging beam, Until the old, rude-furnished room Burst, flower-like, into rosy bloom.

The moon above the eastern wood Shone at its full; the hill-range stood 25 Transfigured in the silver flood,

Its blown snows flashing cold and keen, Dead white, save where some sharp ravine Took shadow, or the sombre green

Of hemlocks turned to pitchy black
Against the whiteness at their back.
For such a world and such a night
Most fitting that unwarming light,
Which only seemed, where'er it fell
To make the coldness visible.

Shut in from all the world without,
We sat the clean-winged hearth about,
Content to let the north-wind roar
In baffled rage at pane and door,
While the red logs before us beat
The frost-line back with tropic heat;
And ever, when a louder blast
Shook beam and rafter as it passed,
The merrier up its roaring draught

The great throat of the chimney laughed.
The house-dog on his paws outspread
Laid to the fire his drowsy head,
The cat's dark silhouette on the wall
A couchant tiger's seemed to fall;
And, for the winter fireside meet,
Between the andiron's straddling feet,
The mug of cider simmered slow,
The apples sputtered in a row,
And, close at hand, the basket stood
With nuts from brown October's wood.

Next morn we wakened with the shout
Of merry voices high and clear;

And saw the teamsters drawing near
To break the drifted highways out.
Down the long hillside treading slow
We saw the half-buried oxen go,

5 Shaking the snow from heads uptost,
Their straining nostrils white with frost.
Before our door the straggling train
Drew up, an added team to gain.
The elders threshed their hands a-cold,
Passed, with the cider-mug, their jokes
From lip to lip; the younger folks

10

Down the loose snow-banks, wrestling, rolled,
Then toiled again the cavalcade

O'er windy hill, through clogged ravine,
15 And woodland paths that wound between
Low drooping pine-boughs winter-weighed.
From every barn a team afoot,
At every house a new recruit.

TELLING THE BEES

20 Here is the place; right over the hill

25

Runs the path I took;

You can see the gap in the old wall still,

And the stepping stones in the shallow brook.

There is the house, with the gate red-barred,

And the poplars tall;

And the barn's brown length, and the cattle yard And the white horns tossing above the wall.

There are the beehives ranged in the sun;

And down by the brink

Of the brook are her poor flowers, weed-o'errun,
Pansy and daffodil, rose and pink.

A year has gone, as the tortoise goes,

Heavy and slow;

And the same rose blows, and the same sun glows,
And the same brook sings of a year ago.

There's the same sweet clover smell in the breeze;

And the June sun warm

Tangles his wings of fire in the trees,
Setting, as then, over Fernside farm.

I mind me how, with a lover's care,

From my Sunday coat

I brushed off the burs, and smoothed my hair,

10

15

And cooled at the brookside my brow and throat.

Since we parted, a month had passed,

To love, a year;

Down through the beeches I looked at last

On the little red gate and the well-sweep near.

I can see it all now, the slantwise rain
Of light through the leaves,

The sundown's blaze on her window-pane,
The bloom of her roses under the eaves.

20

Just the same as a month before,

The house and the trees,

The barn's brown gable, the vine by the door,
Nothing changed but the hives of bees.

5 Before them, under the garden wall,
Forward and back,

Went, drearily singing, the chore girl small,
Draping each hive with a shred of black.

Trembling, I listened; the summer sun 10 Had the chill of snow;

For I knew she was telling the bees of one
Gone on the journey we all must go!

Then I said to myself, "My Mary weeps
For the dead to-day;

15 Haply her blind old grandsire sleeps

20

The fret and the pain of his age away."

But her dog whined low; on the doorway sill,
With his cane to his chin,

The old man sat; and the chore girl still

Sang to the bees stealing out and in.

And the song she was singing ever since
In my ear sounds on:

"Stay at home, pretty bees, fly not hence!
Mistress Mary is dead and gone!"