Bewrinkled in shingle and lichened in board, With sills settling down to the sward, My old barn it leaneth awry; It sags, and the wags wag their heads going by. In March winds it creaks, Each gaunt timber shrieks Like ribs of a craft off Cape Horn; And in midst of the din The foul weather beats in; And the grain-chest -- 'twould mould any corn! Pull it down, says a neighbor. Never mine be that labor! For a Spirit inhabits, a fellowly one, The like of which never responded to me From the long hills and hollows that make up the sea, Hills and hollows where Echo is none. The site should I clear, and rebuild, Would that Voice reinhabit? -- Self-willed, Says each pleasing thing Never Dives can buy, Let me keep where I cling! I am touchy as tinder Yea, quick to take wing, Nor return if I fly. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE VOICE by WILFRID WILSON GIBSON BAVARIAN GENTIANS by DAVID HERBERT LAWRENCE A MAN BY THE NAME OF BOLUS by JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY CLEOPATRA by WILLIAM WETMORE STORY MEDITATION AT KEW by ANNA WICKHAM ROSAMUND: ROSAMOND'S SONG by JOSEPH ADDISON ODES: BOOK 1: ODE 7. ON THE USE OF POETRY by MARK AKENSIDE TO A SINGING BIRD by PHILIP AYRES I SHALL HAVE PEACE AGAIN (WRITTEN AFTER READING 'RIDERS TO THE SEA' by FLORA LOUISE BAILEY |