COLLECTED POEMS
The old man heard it; and he heard, perforce,
Words out of lips that were no more to speak
Words of the past that shook the old man's cheek
Like dead, remembered footsteps on old floors.
And then there were the leaves that plagued him so I
The brown, thin leaves that on the stones outside
Skipped with a freezing whisper. Now and then
They stopped, and stayed there just to let him know
How dead they were; but if the old man cried,
They fluttered off like withered souls of men.
AARON STARK
Wthal a meagre man was Aaron Stark,
Cursed and unkempt, shrewd, shrivelled, and morose.
A miser was he, with a miser's nose,
And eyes like little dollars in the dark.
His thin, pinched mouth was nothing but a mark;
And when he spoke there came like sullen blows
Through scattered fangs a few snarled words and close,
As if a cur were chary of its bark.
Glad for the murmur of his hard renown,
Year after year he shambled through the town,
A loveless exile moving with a staff;
And oftentimes there crept into his ears
A sound of alien pity, touched with tears,
And then (and only then) did Aaron laugh.
THE GARDEN
There is a fenceless garden overgrown
With buds and blossoms and all sorts of leaves;
And once, among the roses and the sheaves,
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