Foliage: Various Poems

SWEET STAY-AT-HOME

     Sweet Stay-at-Home, sweet Well-content,
     Thou knowest of no strange continent:
     Thou hast not felt thy bosom keep
     A gentle motion with the deep;
     Thou hast not sailed in Indian seas,
     Where scent comes forth in every breeze.
     Thou hast not seen the rich grape grow
     For miles, as far as eyes can go;
     Thou hast not seen a summer's night
     When maids could sew by a worm's light;
     Nor the North Sea in spring send out
     Bright hues that like birds flit about
     In solid cages of white ice—
     Sweet Stay-at-Home, sweet Love-one-place.
     Thou hast not seen black fingers pick
     White cotton when the bloom is thick,
     Nor heard black throats in harmony;
     Nor hast thou sat on stones that lie
     Flat on the earth, that once did rise
     To hide proud kings from common eyes,
     Thou hast not seen plains full of bloom
     Where green things had such little room
     They pleased the eye like fairer flowers—
     Sweet Stay-at-Home, all these long hours.
     Sweet Well-content, sweet Love-one-place,
     Sweet, simple maid, bless thy dear face;
     For thou hast made more homely stuff
     Nurture thy gentle self enough;

     Not for the knowledge in thy mind.