Beatrice Ravenel

“WHERE do I live when I’m at home?”

The gypsy laughed to me.

“My heartstone’s set in the good red loam,

And the sky was raised for my own roof-tree.

As he hoists his shell on a shiny track,

I carry the sky, like a snail, on my back,

Till it dabbles its eaves in the sea.

“And when dark comes down, and its arch grows thin,

I haven’t a place to be lonesome in;

For I look through the moon like a clean glass pane

And a candle set

In the house of a friend where I’ll come again—

(But, Lord, not yet,

While the earth is warm to my side and kind!)

And the mischievous star in the curving tree

Is the spark of a wild faun’s pipe maybe—

He with a mind

To happen in for an hour or two

Without any words, as a pal might do.

“Where I wake with a baby fern-leaf curled

In my rumpled palm, as a child could come—

That’s where I live when I’m at home,

Right in the world!”