FACES

I tire of these empty masks,

These faces of city women

That seem so vapid and well-controlled.

I get tired of their guarded ways

And their eyes that are always empty

Of either passion or hate

Or promise or love,

And that seem to be old

And are never young!

I think of the homelier faces

That I have seen,

The vital and open faces

In the by-ways of the world:

A Polish girl who met

Her lover one wintry morning

Outside the gaol at Ossining;

A lean young Slav violinist

And the steerage women about him,

Held by the sound of his music;

A young and deep-bosomed Teuton

Suckling her shawl-wrapped child

On a grey stone bridge in Detmold;

A group of girls from Ireland,

Crowding the steps of a colonist-car

And singing half-sadly together

As their train rocked on and on

Over the sun-bathed prairie;

A mournful Calabrian mother

Standing and staring out

Past the mists of Ischia

After a fading steamer;

A Nautch girl held by a sailor

Who'd taken a knife from her fingers

But not the fire from her eyes;

And a silent Sicilian mother

Standing alone in the Marina

Awaiting her boy who had been

Long years away!—

These I remember!

And of these

I never tire!