Martha ( Gipsies on Tilberstowe: 1917 )

Small child with the pinched face,

Why do you stare

With screwed-up eyes under a shock

Of dull carrot hair?

— Child in the long, torn frock,

Crouched in the warm dust:

Why do you stare, as if

Stare you must?

Fairies in gossamer,

Hero and warrior,

Queens in their cherry gowns,

Wizards and witches:

Dream you of such as these?

Palaces? Orange-trees?

Dream you of swords and crowns,

Child of the ditches?

Still in the warm dust

Sits she and stares; as if

Stare she must,

Pale eyes that see through:

Soon I must stare too:

Soon through the fierce glare

Loom things that are not there:

Out of the blind Past

Savages grim:

Negroes and muleteers,

Saxons and wanderers

Tall as a ship's mast,

Spectral and dim.

Stirring the race's dust,

Stares she as stare she must.

Fade they: but still the glare

Shimmers her copper hair.

Eight years of penury,

Whining and beggary,

Famine and cursing,

Hunger and sharp theft:

Death comes to such as these

Under the sobbing trees.

The cold stars nursing

Those that are left.

Angel and devil peers

Through those pale eyes of hers,

Child of the Wide Earth,

Born at the World's birth,

Grave with the World's pain,

Mirthless and tearless:

Widowed from babyhood,

Child without childhood,

Stained with an earthy stain,

Loveless and fearless:

My God is overhead:

Yours must be cold. Or dead.

— Child with the pinched face

Why do you stare

With so much knowledge under your shock

Of wild matted hair?