To look bright and hard brows to soften.
Not once, while they were looking in the glass,
Did I peep over their shoulders to see myself.
It would have been quite unavailing for me,
Who have grown grey in service of other women,
To have used myself as any sort of a model.
Had I looked in the mirror I should have seen
Only a bleached face, long housed from sunshine,
A mouth quick with forced smiles, eyes greyly stagnant,
And over all, like a night fog creeping,