Man Against the Sky: A Book of Poems

<h2> Stafford's Cabin </h2> <p>Once there was a cabin here, and once there was a man;<br/> And something happened here before my memory began.<br/> Time has made the two of them the fuel of one flame<br/> And all we have of them is now a legend and a name.<br/> <br/> All I have to say is what an old man said to me,<br/> And that would seem to be as much as there will ever be.<br/> "Fifty years ago it was we found it where it sat."&mdash;<br/> And forty years ago it was old Archibald said that.<br/> <br/> "An apple tree that's yet alive saw something, I suppose,<br/> Of what it was that happened there, and what no mortal knows.<br/> Some one on the mountain heard far off a master shriek,<br/> And then there was a light that showed the way for men to seek.<br/> <br/> "We found it in the morning with an iron bar behind,<br/> And there were chains around it; but no search could ever find,<br/> Either in the ashes that were left, or anywhere,<br/> A sign to tell of who or what had been with Stafford there.<br/> <br/> "Stafford was a likely man with ideas of his own&mdash;<br/> Though I could never like the kind that likes to live alone;<br/> And when you met, you found his eyes were always on your shoes,<br/> As if they did the talking when he asked you for the news.<br/> <br/> "That's all, my son. Were I to talk for half a hundred years<br/> I'd never clear away from there the cloud that never clears.<br/> We buried what was left of it,&mdash;the bar, too, and the chains;<br/> And only for the apple tree there's nothing that remains."<br/> <br/> Forty years ago it was I heard the old man say,<br/> "That's all, my son."&mdash;And here again I find the place to-day,<br/> Deserted and told only by the tree that knows the most,<br/> And overgrown with golden-rod as if there were no ghost.<br/></p> <p><SPAN name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"></SPAN></p> <br/> <div style="break-after:column;"></div><br />