A Changeling Grateful

Here they give me greeting,
House me warm within,
Break their bread and share it
With the heart of kin.

Here the ruddy hearth-light
Singes not a moth,
Gives a summer welcome
As a red rose doth.

I would leave a gift here
If I might: not I!—
Like a homeless laughter,
Vagrant wind gone by.

But while I am a glow-worm
I will shine and stay:
When I am a shadow…
I will creep away.

More poems by Josephine Preston Peabody

A Far-Off Rose

O Far-off rose of long ago,
An hour of sweet, an hour of red,
To live, to breathe, and then to go …
A Song of Solomon

King solomon was the wisest man
Of all that have been kings.
He built an House unto the Lord; …
After Music

I Saw not they were strange, the ways I roam,
Until the music called, and called me thence,
And tears stirred in my heart as tears may come …
Caravans

What bring ye me, O camels, across the southern desert,
The wan and parching desert, pale beneath the dusk?
Ye great slow-moving ones, faithful as care is faithful, …