The Eavesdropper

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In a still room at hush of dawn,
  My Love and I lay side by side
  And heard the roaming forest wind
  Stir in the paling autumn-tide.
  I watched her earth-brown eyes grow glad
  Because the round day was so fair;
  While memories of reluctant night
  Lurked in the blue dusk of her hair.
  Outside, a yellow maple tree,
 Shifting upon the silvery blue
 With tiny multitudinous sound,
 Rustled to let the sunlight through.

 The livelong day the elvish leaves
 Danced with their shadows on the floor;
 And the lost children of the wind
 Went straying homeward by our door.

 And all the swarthy afternoon
 We watched the great deliberate sun
 Walk through the crimsoned hazy world,
 Counting his hilltops one by one.

 Then as the purple twilight came
 And touched the vines along our eaves,
 Another Shadow stood without
 And gloomed the dancing of the leaves.

 The silence fell on my Love's lips;
 Her great brown eyes were veiled and sad
 With pondering some maze of dream,
 Through all the splendid year was glad.

 Restless and vague as a gray wind
 Her heart had grown, she knew not why.
 But hurrying to the open door,
 Against the verge of western sky

 I saw retreating on the hills,
 Looming and sinister and black,
 The stealthy figure swift and huge
 Of One who strode and looked not back.

© Bliss William Carman