The Hill Wife lyrics

Loneliness
(Her Word)

One ought not to have to care
      So much as you and I
Care when the birds come round the house
      To seem to say good-bye;

Or care so much when they come back
      With whatever it is they sing;
The truth being we are as much
      Too glad for the one thing

As we are too sad for the other here—
      With birds that fill their breasts
But with each other and themselves
      And their built or driven nests.

House Fear

Always—I tell you this they learned—
Always at night when they returned
To the lonely house from far away,
To lamps unlighted and fire gone gray,
They learned to rattle the lock and key
To give whatever might chance to be
Warning and time to be off in flight:
And preferring the out- to the in-door night,
They learned to leave the house-door wide
Until they had lit the lamp inside.
The Oft-Repeated Dream

She had no saying dark enough
      For the dark pine that kept
Forever trying the window-latch
      Of the room where they slept.

The tireless but ineffectual hands
      That with every futile pass
Made the great tree seem as a little bird
      Before the mystery of glass!

It never had been inside the room,
      And only one of the two
Was afraid in an oft-repeated dream
      Of what the tree might do.

The Impulse

It was too lonely for her there,
      And too wild,
And since there were but two of them,
      And no child,

And work was little in the house,
      She was free,
And followed where he furrowed field,
      Or felled tree.
She rested on a log and tossed
      The fresh chips,
With a song only to herself
      On her lips.

And once she went to break a bough
      Of black alder.
She strayed so far she scarcely heard
      When he called her—

And didn’t answer—didn’t speak—
      Or return.
She stood, and then she ran and hid
      In the fern.

He never found her, though he looked
      Everywhere,
And he asked at her mother’s house
      Was she there.

Sudden and swift and light as that
      The ties gave,
And he learned of finalities
      Besides the grave.