| |
| I WATCH the leaves that flutter in the wind, | |
| Bathing my eyes with coolness and my heart | |
| Filling with springs of grateful sense anew, | |
| Before my window—in wind and rain and sun. | |
| And now the wind is gone and now the rain, | 5 |
| And all a motionless moment breathe; and now | |
| Playful the wind comes back—again the shower, | |
| Again the sunshine! Like a golden swarm | |
| Of butterflies the leaves are fluttering, | |
| The leaves are dancing, singing—all alive | 10 |
| (For Fancy gives her breath to every leaf) | |
| For the blithe moment. Beautiful to me, | |
| Of all inanimate things most beautiful, | |
| And dear as flowers their kindred, are the leaves | |
| In their glad summer life; and, when a child, | 15 |
| I loved to lie through sunny afternoons | |
| With half-shut eyes (familiar then with things | |
| Long unfamiliar, knowing Fairyland | |
| And all the unhidden mysteries of the Earth) | |
| Using my kinship in those earlier days | 20 |
| With Nature and the humbler people, dear | |
| To her green life, in every shade and sun. | |
| The leaves had myriad voices, and their joy | |
| One with the birds’ that sang among them seemed; | |
| And, oftentimes, I lay in breezy shade | 25 |
| Till, creeping with the loving stealth he takes | |
| In healthy temperaments, the blessëd Sleep | |
| (Thrice blessëd and thrice blessing now, because | |
| Of sleepless things that will not give us rest!) | |
| Came with his weird processions—dreams that wore | 30 |
| All happy masks—blithe fairies number-less, | |
| Forever passing, never more to pass, | |
| The Spirits of the Leaves. Awaking then, | |
| Behold the sun was swimming in my face | |
| Through mists of his creation, swarming gold, | 35 |
| And all the leaves in sultry languor lay | |
| Above me, for I wakened when they dropped | |
| Asleep, unmoving. Now, when Time has ceased | |
| His holiday, and I am prisoned close | |
| In his harsh service, mastered by his Hours, | 40 |
| The leaves have not forgotten me: behold, | |
| They play with me like children who, awake, | |
| Find one most dear asleep and waken him | |
| To their own gladness from his sultry dream; | |
| But nothing sweeter do they give to me | 45 |
| Than thoughts of one who, far away, perchance | |
| Watches like me the leaves and thinks of me,— | |
| While o’er her window sunnily the shower | |
| Touches all boughs to music, and the rose | |
| Beneath swings lovingly toward the dripping pane, | 50 |
| And she, whom Nature gave the freshest sense | |
| Of all her delicate life, rejoices in | |
| The joy of birds that use the hour to sing | |
| With breasts o’erfull of music. “Little Birds,” | |
| She sings, “sing to my little Bird below!” | 55 |
| And with her child-like fancy, half-belief, | |
| She hears them sing and makes believe they obey, | |
| And the child, wakening, listens motionless. | |
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