Let the man freeze an ear or two, I say.
He's here I leave him all to you. Go in

And save his life. . All right, come in, Meserve.
Sit down, sit down. How did you find the horses?"

"Fine, fine."

"And ready for some more? My wife here

Says it won't do. You've got to give it up.”

"Won't you, to please me? Please! If I say please?
Mr. Meserve, I'll leave it to your wife.
What did your wife say on the telephone?"

Meserve seemed to heed nothing but the lamp
Or something not far from it on the table.
By straightening out and lifting a forefinger,
He pointed with his hand from where it lay
Like a white crumpled spider on his knee:
"That leaf there in your open book! It moved
Just then, I thought. It's stood erect like that,
There on the table, ever since I came,
Trying to turn itself backward or forward-
I've had my eye on it to make out which:
If forward, then it's with a friend's impatience—
You see I know-to get you on to things
It wants to see how you will take; if backward,
It's from regret for something you have passed
And failed to see the good of. Never mind,

Things must expect to come in front of us
A many times-I don't say just how many,
That varies with the things-before we see them.
One of the lies would make it out that nothing
Ever presents itself before us twice.

Where would we be at last if that were so?
Our very life depends on everything's
Recurring till we answer from within.

The thousandth time may prove the charm. That leaf!

It can't turn either way. It needs the wind's help.

But the wind didn't move it if it moved;

It moved itself. The wind's at naught in here.

It couldn't stir so sensitively poised

A thing as that. It couldn't reach the lamp
To get a puff of black smoke from the flame,
Or blow a rumple in the collie's coat.
You make a little foursquare block of air,
Quiet and light and warm, in spite of all
The illimitable dark and cold and storm,
And by so doing give these three-lamp, dog,
And book-leaf-that keep near you, their repose;
Though for all anyone can tell, repose

May be the thing you haven't, yet you give it.
So false it is that what we haven't we can't give;

So false, that what we always say is true.

I'll have to turn the leaf if no one else will.

It won't lie down. Then let it stand. Who cares?"

Snow

"I shouldn't want to hurry you, Meserve,
But if you're going-Say you'll stay, you know?
But let me raise this curtain on a scene,

And show you how it's piling up against you.
You see the snow-white through the white of frost?
Ask Helen how far up the sash it's climbed

Since last we read the gage."

"It looks as if

Some pallid thing had squashed its features flat, And its eyes shut with overeagerness

To see what people found so interesting

In one another, and had gone to sleep
Of its own stupid lack of understanding,
Or broken its white neck of mushroom stuff
Short off, and died against the window-pane."

"Brother Meserve, take care, you'll scare yourself
More than you will us with such nightmare talk.
It's you it matters to, because it's you
Who have to go out into it alone."

"Let him talk, Helen, and perhaps he'll stay."

"Before you drop the curtain-I'm reminded:
You recollect the boy who came out here
To breathe the air one winter-had a room
Down at the Avery's? Well, one sunny morning
After a downy storm, he passed our place

And found me banking up the house with snow.
And I was burrowing in deep for warmth,
Piling it well above the window-sills.

The snow against the window caught his eye.
'Hey, that's a pretty thought'-those were his words.
'So you can think it's six feet deep outside,
While you sit warm and read up balanced rations.
You can't get too much winter in the winter.'
Those were his words. And he went home and all
But banked the daylight out of Avery's windows.
Now you and I would go to no such length.
At the same time you can't deny it makes
It not a mite worse, sitting here, we three,
Playing our fancy, to have the snow-line run
So high across the pane outside. There where
There is a sort of tunnel in the frost
More like a tunnel than a hole-way down
At the far end of it you see a stir

And quiver like the frayed edge of the drift
Blown in the wind. I like that-I like that.
Well, now I leave you, people."

"Come, Meserve,
We thought you were deciding not to go-
The ways you found to say the praise of comfort
And being where you are. You want to stay."

"I'll own it's cold for such a fall of snow. This house is frozen brittle, all except

Snow

This room you sit in. If you think the wind
Sounds further off, it's not because it's dying;
You're further under in the snow-that's all—
And feel it less. Hear the soft bombs of dust
It bursts against us at the chimney mouth,
And at the eaves. I like it from inside
More than I shall out in it. But the horses
Are rested and it's time to say good-night,
And let you get to bed again. Good-night,
Sorry I had to break in on your sleep."

"Lucky for you you did. Lucky for you
You had us for a half-way station
To stop at. If you were the kind of man
Paid heed to women, you'd take my advice
And for your family's sake stay where you are.
But what good is my saying it over and over?
You've done more than you had a right to think
You could do-now. You know the risk you take
In going on."

"Our snow-storms as a rule
Aren't looked on as man-killers, and although
I'd rather be the beast that sleeps the sleep
Under it all, his door sealed up and lost,
Than the man fighting it to keep above it,
Yet think of the small birds at roost and not

In nests. Shall I be counted less than they are?
Their bulk in water would be frozen rock