Here are my thoughts, alive within this fold,
My simple sheep. Their shepherd, I grow wise
As dearly, gravely, deeply I behold
Their different eyes.
O distant pastures in their blood! O streams
From watersheds that fed them for this prison!
Lights from aloft, midsummer suns in dreams,
Set and arisen.
They wander out, but all return anew,
The small ones, to this heart to which they clung;
“And those that are with young,” the fruitful few
That are with young.
INTIMATIONS OF MORTALITY
FROM RECOLLECTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD
A simple child....
That lightly draws its breath
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?
_Wordsworth_
It knows but will not tell.
Awake, alone, it counts its father’s years—
How few are left—its mother’s. Ah, how well
It knows of death, in tears.
If any of the three—
Parents and child—believe they have prevailed
To keep the secret of mortality,
I know that two have failed.
The third, the lonely, keeps
One secret—a child’s knowledge. When they come
At night to ask wherefore the sweet one weeps,
Those hidden lips are dumb.