And all that hour the envious shades withdrew,
As if to let her dying make its peace
With the condition that her childhood knew
Before she was haunted by her histories.
Ah, des histoires! Their thumbprints on her eyes,
Bruised brown as the ripe margin of a peach,
Tangle her vision in a thread of lies,
Remove the fact from her immediate reach.
Ah, des histoires! That she was young and pure,
A fragrant blossom where the bee refrained,
Seeing that all her dainty musculature
Was to an honorable marriage trained,
And all her lavishing glances bent on one
Heroic in the best domestic scale,
Her lord, her potent lover, and her son,
A chevalier clad in the morning mail,
And that encircled by his solid arm,
Gladdened by sweet approvals from his tongue,
She exercised on impious time her charm,
And, growing old, remained forever young,
Until she wept him as a woman may
Who has given her heart and soul to a noble cause,
And, in the passion of the funeral day,
Receives, but does not seek, discreet applause,
And sorrowing, stays the center of her friends’
Respectful admiration, and their love,
Until it seems her methods and her ends
Fit, as her hand fits in her mourning glove.
Ah, des histoires! Her soft, occluded gaze
Took in some room, but not the one in view,
And to some much deserved but unheard praise
She smiled, while, for an hour, the shades withdrew.
Leave a Reply