The crowds of oak and pine conceal
A sitting one. Along the road
They blend, but he a stack of red
A mantelpiece and slab instead
And chimney up a second floor
Suggest a household seen of yore.

A fire took it, all but bones
And pardoned from demolishment
He seems to me a man, who waits
Arraignment from the higher fates
Whose business I might scarcely know
But, stately, dockets me, I trow

Like all the families gone advance
Who gathered ‘round that comely hearth
In prideful commonality. 

The softness of the goldenrods
Surrounds that square, and lectures hue
To flecking winds and land to wilt
—All this to come again at tilt
Of spring return. But pose
The bricks, in amber, through the close!

And in a wonder, I confuse
That ever-joining ‘round the fire
With staging deigned for wilderness.