Last night your watchdog barked all night, So once you rose and lit the light. It wasn't someone at your locks. No, in your rural letter box I leave this note without a stamp To tell you it was just a tramp Who used your pasture for a camp. There, pointed like the pip of spades, The young spruce made a suite of glades So regular that in the dark The place was like a city park. There I elected to demur Beneath a low-slung juniper That like a blanket on my chin Kept some dew out and some heat in, Yet left me freely face to face All night with universal space. It may have been at two o'clock That under me a point of rock Developed in the gra** and fern, And as I woke afraid to turn Or so much as uncross my feet, Lest having wasted precious heat I never should again be warmed, The largest firedrop ever formed From two stars' having coalesced Went streaking molten down the west. And then your tramp astrologer From see this undoubted stir In Heaven's firm-set firmament, Himself had the equivalent, Only within. Inside the brain Two memories that long had lain Now quivered toward each other, lipped Together, and together slipped, And for a moment all was plain That men have though about in vain. Please, my involuntary host, Forgive me if I seem to boast. ‘Tis possible you may have seen Albeit through a rusty screen, The same sign Heaven showed your guest. Each knows his own discernment best You have had your advantages. Things must have happened to you, yes, And have occurred to you no doubt, If not indeed from sleeping out, Then from the work you went about In farming well—or pretty well. And it is partly to compel Myself, in forma pauperis, To say as much as I wrote you this.