Habitation
High up in the sky there, now, you know,
In this May twilight, our cottage is asleep,
Tenantless, and no creature there to go
Near it but Mrs. Fry’s fat cows, and sheep
Dove-coloured, as is Cotswold. No one hears
Under that cherry-tree the night-jars yet,
The windows are uncurtained; on the stairs
Silence is but by tip-toe silence met.
All doors are fast there. It is a dwelling put by
From use for a little, or long, up there in the
sky.
Empty; a walled-in silence, in this twilight of
May —
A home for lovers, and friendly withdrawing,
and sleep,
With none to love there, nor laugh, nor climb
from the day
To the candles and linen. . . . Yet in the si–
lence creep,
This minute, I know, little ghosts, little vir–
tuous lives,
Breathing upon that still, insensible place,
Touching the latches, sorting the napkins and
knives,
And such for the comfort of being, and bowls
for the grace,
That roses will brim; they are creeping from
that room to this,
One room, and two, till the four are visited . . .
they,
Little ghosts, little lives, are our thoughts in
this twilight of May,
Signs that even the curious man would miss,
Of travelling lovers to Cotswold, signs of an
hour,
Very soon, when up from the valley in June
will ride
Lovers by Lynch to Oakridge up in the wide
Bow of the hill, to a garden of lavender
flower. . . .
The doors are locked; no foot falls; the hearths
are dumb —
But we are there —we are waiting ourselves
who come.
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