REUBEN
Keep him out, Reuben! Reuben lad, I'll pay!
I doubt all hasn’t been your fault. Oh, say
I'll stand, say anything! Only keep him out.”
“I cannot keep him out. The man must do
His duty,” he replied; “and, Sarah lass,
What can it matter, now?” His quiet voice
Was weighted with a dignity from which
She shrank abash’d. The bailiff knock’d again,
And Reuben drew the bolt and let him in.
After the long wild tossing months of rain
And roaring, ice and gloom, on some still dawn,
Windless and mild, the weakling earth awakes.
And, lo! once more on mother-knees it lies,
And on a dear face opens heavy lids—
For there, pale, pensive, veil’d in quietude,
Finger on lip, yet not without a smile,
Spring broods above her nurseling; all is well!
Then, in the spinney, arums of the wood
Push up their young white necks, unfurl their broad
And genial green about some prone fir-tree,
By winter tempests fell’d. The sweet air breathes,
The pale beams play about it, quivering light
Flits on to it and off, while through the twigs
The busy finches flit. But never more
Beneath that blister’d bark the suppling sap
Will rise; the August sunlight ne’er shall bask
38
