Genius Loci

For a long while we did not know his name.
He was the boy we saw one afternoon
Hanging around the wharf when you and I
Went down to watch the Boston boat come in.
He stood in front of us, as grave and thin
As a child in a bad dream; but then as soon
As the old steamer whistled, he was gone.

Another time you saw him on the road,
Watching, you thought, the tracings in the air
Of a hawk's hover, beautiful and wide.
You saw him once astride somebody's wall,
With berries in his hand; and all one fall
He made the neighbor's field a passage where
The pheasants, flushed from hiding, filled the light.

I saw him once or twice, too, later on,
Surprised still by a loneliness as odd
And headstrong as our own. But when we learned
A little more about the place, you knew
And recognized him first bv looking through
His strangeness to his eyes. He was the god
We call familiar now, and by his name.