But not until the evening
Did her hostess come in sight;
Then the Weariness of Labor
Explained unto her neighbor
That she lived but a brief hour at night.
The Wind of Memory
RED curtains shut the storm from sight,
The inner rooms are live with light;
The fireside faces all aglow
See not the pale ghost in the snow,
The pale ghost at the window pressed,
With the wind moaning in her breast.
She sees the face she hurt with scorn,
The other face where joy, new born,
Died out at her cheap mockery;
The eyes she filled, how bitterly!
The head that drooped beneath her jest—
The wind is moaning in her breast.
Invisible, unfelt, unknown,
She lingers trembling. She alone
Notes tenderly her vacant place,
And sees in it her vanished face;
She only—of this happy nest!
The wind is moaning in her breast.
Star-like the happy windows glow,
Framed in with mile on mile of snow;
And from their light a thing of death,
Of grief and memory vanisheth,
Her sin not deep but unredressed,
And the wind moaning in her breast.
Philippa
A GENEROUS gentleness that flowed,
Stream-like, beside a dusty road;
Gave laborers shade, and prisoners sun,
And easeful joy to every one;
With liquid melodies for such
As worked or wearied overmuch,
And ministrations cool and sweet
For fevered hands and aching feet.