From where I lingered in a lull of March Outside the sugar-house one night for choice, I called the fireman in a quiet voice And bade him leave the pan and stoke the arch: "O fireman, give the fire another stoke, And send more sparks up chimney with the smoke." I thought a few might tangle, as they did, Among bare maple boughs, and in the rare Hill atmosphere not cease to glow, And so be added to the moon up there. The moon, though slight, was moon enough to show On every tree a bucket with a lid, And on black ground one bear-skin rug of snow. The sparks made no attempt to be the moon. They were content to figure in the trees As Leo, Orion, and the Pleiades. And that was what the boughs were full of soon. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO AN INTRA-MURAL RAT by MARIANNE MOORE THE HOUSE OF DUST: 1 by CONRAD AIKEN CONTRA MORTEM: THE WHEEL OF BEING II by HAYDEN CARRUTH SISTER MARIA CELESTE, GALILEO'S DAUGHTER, WRITES TO FRIEND by MADELINE DEFREES WHAT THING A BIRD WOULD LOVE by ROBERT FROST |