The stars above the apple boughs,
Like distant gazers, stand aloof,
Watching the white walls of the house,
Watching the room below the roof.
There is the night-hush over all
Beneath the crescent hanging low,
And, through the dark, there comes a call
From hidden lips whose voice I know.
And every root and stem and leaf,
Sends out its scented breath to me;
The fox is waiting like a thief,
The bird is watching from the tree.
And, in the room below the thatch,
While the white house in sleep is drowned,
Up to the open window-latch
There come strange whispers from the ground.
I will arise and steal upon the stair,
Where the tall clock counts up Time’s gathered hoard
Telling its numbers to the empty air,
My naked feet upon the creaking board.
Out, out across the threshold I will go
Into the night, the sighing, luring night,
And all the eyes above, around, below,
Like lamps upon my path shall peer and glow
Till thorn and thicket are alive with light.
I will lie down upon my mother Earth,
Heart to her heart and soul upon her soul,
Until the sounds that in the night have birth
Above my head their harmonies unroll;
And over me the little pattering feet
Shall come and go; and every bush and tree
Shall send from out its shades a cloudy fleet
Of flitting wings whose softly-thronging beat
Shall neither stay nor turn because of me.
❦