Discovered by a thrice-dreamed dream:
Half-tales, half-ballads—until the room
Shook in its shadows with a stream
Of pedlars, witches, cats in crowns,
Denizens of enchanted towns,
And kings confined in forests of gloom.
Her voice went up and down like wind
That wanders lost among the eaves;
The flamelets on her hazel thinned
And dwindled into smouldering eyes;
Her voice failed like the wind that dies,
She threw a handful of black leaves
On the bright litter of the hearth
And thrust her hazel’s double spark
Within. The smell of smoking earth
Rose from the stones where ceased to burn
The fiery lines of cone and fern
And berry: the room was dumb and dark.
THE REFLECTION.
HE had no life except to be what men
Required of her to be.
They came for sympathy, and came again
For sympathy.
She never knew the way her heart to spare
When they were hurt or worn,
Whatever one may for another bear
By her was borne.
They said, you give us of yourself so much!
She heard them with a smile,
Knowing she only gave to such and such
Themselves awhile.
Their interests, their frets, their loneliness,
Their sorrows and despairs,
She wore for them—they saw her in no dress
That was not theirs.
She learned to understand the solitudes
When she by none was sought;
Men of themselves grow sick, and in those moods
Needed her not,