Now twenty-four or maybe
Was the woman's age, and her white brow was sleek;
Lips parted in surprise, the flawless cheek;
The long brown hair coiled sullenly alive;
Her hands, dropt in her lap, could not
At the novel on the table, being weak;
Nor breath, expunger of the mortal
Of nature, its own tenement contrive;
For look you how her body stiffly
Just as she left it, unprepared to stay,
The posture waiting on the sleeping eyes,
While the body's life, deep as a covered well,
Instinctive as the wind, busy as May,
Burns out a secret passageway to hell.
There is not anything to say to
Speechless, who have stood up white to the
All night-till day, harrying the game too close,
Quarries the perils that at midnight
Waiting for those who hope to
With foolish daylight their most anxious fear,
A bloodless and white fear that she may
In the hushed room, and leave them soundless here:
There is no word that death can find to
Deeper than life, savager than their time.
When Gabriel's trumpet ends all life's delay,
Will crash the beams of firmamental woe:
Not nature will sustain the even
Of death, though death sustains all nature, so.
