The Homebody

There still are kindly things for me to know

Who am afraid to dream, afraid to feel

This little chair of scrubbed and sturdy deal

This easy book, this fire, sedate and slow

And I shall stay with them, nor cry the woe

Of wounds across my breast that do not heal

Nor wish that Beauty drew a duller steel

Since I am sworn to meet her as a foe



It may be, when the devil's own time is done

That I shall hear the dropping of the rain

At midnight, and lie quiet in my bed

Or stretch and straighten to the yellow sun

Or face the turning tree, and have no pain

So shall I learn at last my heart is dead