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OUT walking
in the frozen swamp one grey day
I paused and said,
"I will turn back from here.
No, I will go on
farther--and we shall see."
The hard snow held me,
save where now and then
One foot went down. The view
was all in lines
Straight up and down of tall slim
trees
Too much alike to mark or name a place by
So
as to say for certain I was here
Or somewhere else: I
was just far from home.
A small bird flew before me.
He was careful
To put a tree between us when he
lighted,
And say no word to tell me who he was
Who
was so foolish as to think what he thought.
He
thought that I was after him for a feather--
The
white one in his tail; like one who takes
Everything
said as personal to himself.
One flight out sideways
would have undeceived him.
And then there was a pile
of wood for which
I forgot him and let his little
fear
Carry him off the way I might have gone,
Without so much as wishing him good-night.
He went
behind it to make his last stand.
It was a cord of
maple, cut and split
And piled--and measured, four by
four by eight.
And not another like it could I see.
No runner tracks in this year's snow looped near it.
And it was older sure than this year's cutting,
Or
even last year's or the year's before.
The wood was
grey and the bark warping off it
And the pile
somewhat sunken. Clematis
Had wound strings round and
round it like a bundle.
What held it though on one
side was a tree
Still growing, and on one a stake and
prop,
These latter about to fall. I thought that only
Someone who lived in turning to fresh tasks
Could so
forget his handiwork on which
He spent himself, the
labour of his axe,
And leave it there far from a
useful fireplace
To warm the frozen swamp as best it
could
With the slow smokeless burning of decay.
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