Dedication
TO ANNIE BARKER FOLGER
Epigraph
Out on the night they glimmer, Island houses,
Casements of orange lustre on the moors;
Dune-hidden panes where winter sea carouses
Shine on the roads that wind past farmhouse doors.
The Island windows gleam, and all the sorrow
Of human life is lanterned into Dream;
The fishers’ huts are splashed, the grey shacks borrow
Red from the sun and weltered moonlight gleam.
Out on the dark, gold patches on the stable,
Light-stippled wharves; ruby and malachite;
Sharp, slanting roofs with witchlike peak and gable,
Plaqued in warm squares of ruddy window light.
Thin blocks of amber in the misty weather,
Oblongs of white translucence on the down;
Dim, tawny lights beyond pine hidden heather,
Clear coastward lights fringing the steepled town.
The grey owl flaps across the heaving hollow,
The chimneyed house sinks in the commons’ wave;
The cottage lights a hundred starlights follow,
The Island windows shine... the road is brave!