VI + 

The Stare’s Nest by My Window + 

The bees build in the crevices + 

Of loosening masonry, and there + 

The mother birds bring grubs and flies. + 

My wall is loosening; honey-bees + 

Come build in the empty house of the stare. + 

We are closed in, and the key is turned + 

On our uncertainty; somewhere + 

A man is killed, or a house burned, + 

Yet no clear fact to be discerned: + 

Come build in the empty house of the stare. + 

A barricade of stone or of wood; + 

Some fourteen days of civil war; + 

Last night they trundled down the road + 

That dead young soldier in his blood: + 

Come build in the empty house of the stare. + 

We had fed the heart on fantasies, + 

The heart’s grown brutal from the fare, + 

More substance in our enmities + 

Than in our love; oh, honey-bees + 

Come build in the empty house of the stare. + 