AS  I  LAY . . .
 
As I lay with my lover on a windy hill, 
snugged in his arms and snaffled in his bosom, 

I heard a bell toll in the earth 
while my ball ran slowly down 

and earth’s great bulk lifted a little 
and her knell struck wearily into my weird. 

My lover would have bled and blissed me clean: 
but how should I fare and I so fearful, 
         a broken fern in my hair? 

I mourn in the murk of my narrow way 
with life and death a shade too near: 

I find my sere frame propped by the shore 
and before me a large eye, starry and wet, 
         and in my hand a dead sparrow . . . 

O, my lover, have ruth on me! 
in toss and touse, a thousand thistles, 

in thresh of limbs, in choke of throsm: 
nothing is behind me when I go in, 

but everything is before us when we come out.

                     (1945)