The Eavesdropper

In a still room at hush of dawn,

My Love and I lay side by side

And heard the roaming forest wind

Stir in the paling autumn-tide.

I watched her earth-brown eyes grow glad

Because the round day was so fair;

While memories of reluctant night

Lurked in the blue dusk of her hair.

Outside, a yellow maple-tree,

Shifting upon the silvery blue

With small innumerable sound,

Rustled to let the sunlight through.

The livelong day the elvish leaves

Danced with their shadows on the floor;

And the lost children of the wind

Went straying homeward by our door.

All the swarthy afternoon

We watched the great deliberate sun

Walk through the crimsoned hazy world,

Counting his hilltops one by one.

Then as the purple twilight came

And touched the vines along our eaves,

Another Shadow stood without

And gloomed the dancing of the leaves.

The silence fell on my Love’s lips;

Her great brown eyes were veiled and sad

With pondering some maze of dream,

Though all the splendid year was glad.

Restless and vague as a gray wind

Her heart had grown, she knew not why.

But hurrying to the open door,

Against the verge of western sky

I saw retreating on the hills,

Looming and sinister and black,

The stealthy figure swift and huge

Of One who strode and looked not back.

Bliss Carman (1861 - 1929)