Leaves at My Window

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, 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 (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, 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 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 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 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, 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, 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 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, 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!” And with her child-like fancy, half-belief, She hears them sing and makes believe they obey, And the child, wakening, listens motionless.