His eyes are spiders, and new veils are dropped
Each winter and summer morning in the brain.
He sees but silken-dimly, though the ends

Of his white fingers feel more things than are-
More delicate webs, and sundry bags of seed.
That flicker at the window is a wren.

She taps the pane with a neat tail, and scolds.
He knows her there, and hears her, far away,
As if an insect sang in a tree. Whereat
The shelf he fumbles on is distant, too,

And his bent arm is longer than an arm.
Something between his fingers brings him back-
An envelop that rustles-and he reads,
"The coreopsis". He does not delay.

Down from the rafter where they always hang
He shoulders rake and hoe, and shuffles out.

The sun is warm and thick upon the path,
But he goes lightly, under a broad straw
None knows the age of. They are watching him
From upper windows as his slippered feet
Avoid the aster and nasturtium beds
Where he is not to meddle. His preserve

Is farther, and no stranger touches it.
He weeps no longer that he is forbade
All others than this patch behind the rocks;
It is a tiny holding, but his own.

Yesterday he was planting larkspur there.

He works the ground, and hoes the larkspur out— Yesterday was a million years ago—

Pressing the coreopsis gently in.

With an old hose he plays a quavering stream, Then shuffles back with the tools and goes to supper.

Over his bowl of milk, wherein he breaks
Five brittle crackers, drifts the question: "Uncle,
What have you planted for the summer coming?"

"Why-hollyhocks," he murmers; and they smile.

She lowers her nose to the ground, but suddenly shifts,
Looks up again, and stares into the quiet.
Yesterday, and as long as she remembers,

At this good hour there sounded a shrill cry:

"Here, Chunk! Here, Chunk! Here, Chunk!" and two thin arms
Were waved from a dark opening in the wall.
Now nothing; so she feeds until the sun
Comes cooler over the meadow, and starts home.
Her feet trample on clover, and her breast
Moves with superfluous might against the weeds.
She plows across the creek and through the gap,
Is half-way up the hillside; still no shout,
No corn upon an aged, trembling hand.
She hesitates, as if the barn were gone,
Had never been just here, and gazes long
At the half-opened door, then stumbles through.
Some stranger has thrown nubbins in the box;
Her salt is there, the timothy is down.

She munches, while no words are in her nostrils;
No feet in boots too big for them clump by.

The weak old man who never failed has failed.
Yet foolish whisperings, not of the hay, are heard:
Spidery ghosts of fingers now caress her,
Swiftly over a shoulder, down a flank,

Smoothing, smoothing her mane till evening is night.
Does a plain mare remember? And how long?
To-morrow will come a slap and a careless whistle.
To-morrow will come a boy. Is she to forget?