Page:Anthology of Magazine Verse (1921).djvu/109

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In summer loneliness was lulled By birds that came to sing;An old black creaker, by the door, Was always a friendly thing.
Slim poplars grew close to the barn And whispered all day long;The Plymouth Rocks scratched in their shade And cackled or made song.
But in the winter when the jays Sat shrieking, limb to limb,It seemed somehow that he must hear;— That she must talk with him.
And when a lone, lean crow would light Upon a fire-stubbed pine,It seemed a black thought from her heart, That blurred her brain like wine.
One day a storm drove down; the wind Banked snow in drifts on farm,Encircling, with one deep drift, The house like a gripping arm.
She shoveled a path from house to barn; The cattle must be fed:He let them go a day and night— At her plea shook his head.
The crow came to the barn that night; She took care of the cat;The crow, on top-loft ladder's round, In brooding silence sat.
When Sunday came the storm had cleared. Some city folks snow-shoedThrough Toby's Gap to Brimmer's Place, And one of them, a dude,

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