Page:The Book of the Homeless (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916).djvu/71

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JOSEPHINE PRESTON PEABODY


TWO SONGS OF A YEAR

1914-1915

I

CHILDREN'S KISSES

So; it is nightfall then.
The valley flush
That beckoned home the way for herds and men
Is hardly spent:
Down the bright pathway winds, through veils of hush
And wonderment.
Unuttered yet the chime
That tells of folding-time;
Hardly the sun has set;—
The trees are sweetly troubled with bright words
From new-alighted birds.
And yet,…
Here, round my neck, are come to cling and twine,
The arms, the folding arms, close, close and fain,
All mine!—
I pleaded to, in vain,
I reached for, only to their dimpled scorning,
Down the blue halls of morning;—
Where all things else could lure them on and on,
Now here, now gone,
From bush to bush, from beckoning bough to bough,
With bird-calls of Come Hither!


Ah, but now…

Now it is dusk.—And from his heaven of mirth,

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