Only when he’s gone they lift their darkened brows,
        Light comes back to their eyes,
Their leaves caress the light, the light laves their branches,
        They move loverlike, appealingly;
Slaves now no more the poplars lift and shake their boughs,
        And there’s a heaven of evening in their eyes.

THE FUGITIVE

In the hush of early even
The clouds came flocking over,
Till the last wind fell from heaven
    And no bird cried.

Darkly the clouds were flocking,
Shadows moved and deepened,
Then paused; the poplar’s rocking
    Ceased; the light hung still

Like a painted thing, and deadly. 
Then from the cloud’s side flickered
Sharp lightning, thrusting madly
    At the cowering fields.

Thrice the fierce cloud lighten’d,
Down the hill slow thunder trembled;
Day in her cave grew frightened,
    Crept away, and died.

THE UNTHRIFT

Here in the shade of the tree
The hours go by
Silent and swift,
Lightly as birds fly. 
Then the deep clouds broaden and drift,
Or the cloudless darkness and the worn moon. 
Waking, the dreamer knows he is old,
And the day that he dreamed was gone
Is gone.

THE WREN

Within the greenhouse dim and damp
  The heat floats like a cloud. 
Pale rose-leaves droop from the rust roof
  With rust-edged roses bowed. 
      As I go in
Out flies the startled wren.

By the tall dark fir tree he sings
  Morn after morn still,
Shy and bold he flits and sings
  Tinily sweet and shrill. 
      As I go out
His song follows me about ...

About the orchard under trees
  Beaded with cherries bright,
Past the rat-haunted Honeybourne
  And up those hills of light: 
      As up I go
His notes more sweetly flow.

Or down those dark hills when night’s there
  Full of dark thoughts and deep,
A thin clear soundless music comes
  Like stars in broken sleep. 
      When I come down
All those dark thoughts are flown.

And now that sweetness is more sweet,
  Here where the aeroplanes
Labouring and groaning in the height
  Lift their lifeless vans:—­
      Sweet, sweet to hear
The far off wren singing clear.

THE WINDS

In these green fields, in this green spring,
In this green world of burning sweet
That drives its sour from everything
And burns the Arctic with new heat,
That seems so slow and flies so fleet
      On half-seen wing;

In this green world the birds are all
With motion mad, are wild with song;
The grass leaps like a sudden wall
Flung up against a foe that long
Strode round and wrought his frosty wrong. 
      The bright winds call,