Morning — of the light that will not keep, begin;
The east came in, and would not stay within.
Sing, Muse, the girl who flung the shutters wide.
May gave the courtyard day on every side
And did not linger there to name the sight.
She went. The stair was quick. She found him right
Beside the well, still drawing, unaware
The east had reached the water and the air.
"Come out," she said. "It is too much to keep
Indoors." He left the jar. They took the steep
Path to the trees, and morning was the way.
As when an orchard, not of one year's stay,
Bears pear on pear, and still another nears
The selfsame bough, and ripens with the years,
And never is the garden an empty guest —
So morning kept on giving as they pressed
Into the leaves. The fruit was at its best,
Cool, heavy. May put one into his palm.
He bit. The bright ran down. He laughed. The calm
Of leaves took her laugh too. A bird then flew
Up from the next bough, sudden, and they knew
To look, and to be glad they had been stirred.
The startle was a gift. They said no word.
They ate. They stayed. The heat came on. The day
Asked nothing further. May had this to say:
"We keep it only if we spend it now."
"Then we stay here," he said, and kept the vow.
Morning — of the light that will not keep — is spent
By going out to meet it. What is meant
Indoors is shade. The fruit was in the hand.
They bit. They laughed. They let the bird command
The bough a moment. That was all the art.
The east came in. They spent it. Morning's part
Is going out to meet it, not to store.
They laughed. They stayed. They did not ask for more.