Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SECRET HOST, by ELVIRA SLACK


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SECRET HOST, by                    
First Line: All night I heard the constant passing and re-passing
Last Line: In these thousand drifting wisps of snow.
Subject(s): Wellesley College


ALL night I heard the constant passing and re-passing
Of their footsteps;
Their almost imperceptible voices,
Calling, calling
About the house.
I wakened, knowing that the air was weighted with their presence,
A quiet presence, it seemed
That one could neither see nor hear;
Innumerable, companionable,
Foregathering on every horizon,
Moving nearer discernably,
Down the roadways of the wind.

I could tell there were many in the secret,
Especially the sleepless pines;
The birds had hid themselves,
The moon gone on her endless journey:
It was as if some one were bidding the earth sleep,
And I slept.

But lo! this morning as I waken,
They have come,
The indisputable host!
The ominous silence has broken into fragments
In these thousand drifting wisps of snow.





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