Last night your watchdog barked all night,
So once you rose and lit the light.
It wasn’t someone at your locks.
No, in your rural letter box
I leave this note without a stamp
To tell you it was just a tramp
Who used your pasture for a camp.
There, pointed like the pip of spades,
The young spruce made a suite of glades
So regular that in the dark
The place was like a city park.
There I elected to demur
Beneath a low-slung juniper
That like a blanket on my chin
Kept some dew out and some heat in,
Yet left me freely face to face
All night with universal space.
It may have been at two o’clock
That under me a point of rock
Developed in the grass and fern,
And as I woke afraid to turn
Or so much as uncross my feet,
Lest having wasted precious heat
I never should again be warmed,
The largest firedrop ever formed
From two stars’ having coalesced
Went streaking molten down the west.
And then your tramp astrologer
From see this undoubted stir
In Heaven’s firm-set firmament,
Himself had the equivalent,
Only within. Inside the brain
Two memories that long had lain
Now quivered toward each other, lipped
Together, and together slipped,
And for a moment all was plain
That men have though about in vain.
Please, my involuntary host,
Forgive me if I seem to boast.
‘Tis possible you may have seen
Albeit through a rusty screen,
The same sign Heaven showed your guest.
Each knows his own discernment best
You have had your advantages.
Things must have happened to you, yes,
And have occurred to you no doubt,
If not indeed from sleeping out,
Then from the work you went about
In farming well—or pretty well.
And it is partly to compel
Myself, in forma pauperis,
To say as much as I wrote you this.
So once you rose and lit the light.
It wasn’t someone at your locks.
No, in your rural letter box
I leave this note without a stamp
To tell you it was just a tramp
Who used your pasture for a camp.
There, pointed like the pip of spades,
The young spruce made a suite of glades
So regular that in the dark
The place was like a city park.
There I elected to demur
Beneath a low-slung juniper
That like a blanket on my chin
Kept some dew out and some heat in,
Yet left me freely face to face
All night with universal space.
It may have been at two o’clock
That under me a point of rock
Developed in the grass and fern,
And as I woke afraid to turn
Or so much as uncross my feet,
Lest having wasted precious heat
I never should again be warmed,
The largest firedrop ever formed
From two stars’ having coalesced
Went streaking molten down the west.
And then your tramp astrologer
From see this undoubted stir
In Heaven’s firm-set firmament,
Himself had the equivalent,
Only within. Inside the brain
Two memories that long had lain
Now quivered toward each other, lipped
Together, and together slipped,
And for a moment all was plain
That men have though about in vain.
Please, my involuntary host,
Forgive me if I seem to boast.
‘Tis possible you may have seen
Albeit through a rusty screen,
The same sign Heaven showed your guest.
Each knows his own discernment best
You have had your advantages.
Things must have happened to you, yes,
And have occurred to you no doubt,
If not indeed from sleeping out,
Then from the work you went about
In farming well—or pretty well.
And it is partly to compel
Myself, in forma pauperis,
To say as much as I wrote you this.
Comments (0)
The minimum comment length is 50 characters.
Information
Users of Guests are not allowed to comment this publication.
There are no comments yet. You can be the first!