Classic Poem

We have bit no forbidden apple,
Eve and I,
Yet the splashes of day and night
Falling round us, no longer dapple
The same valley with purple and white.

This is our own still valley,
Our Eden, our home;
But day shows it vivid with feeling,
And the pallor of night does not tally
With dark sleep that once covered the ceiling.

The little red heifer: to-night I looked in her eyes;
She will calve to-morrow
Last night, when I went with the lantern, the sow was grabbing her litter
With snarling red jaws; and I heard the cries
Of the new-born, and then, the old owl, then the bats that flitter.

And I woke to the sound of the wood-pigeon, and lay and listened
Till I could borrow
A few quick beats from a wood-pigeon's heart; and when I did rise
Saw where morning sun on the shaken iris glistened.
And I knew that home, this valley, was wider than Paradise.

I learned it all from my Eve,
The warm, dumb wisdom;
She's a quicker instructress than years;
She has quickened my pulse to receive
Strange throbs, beyond laughter and tears.

So now I know the valley
Fleshed all like me
With feelings that change and quiver
And clash, and yet seem to tally,
Like all the clash of a river
Moves on to the sea.