TWO WIVES

INTO the shadow-white chamber silts the white

Flux of another dawn. The wind that all night

Long has waited restless, suddenly wafts

A whirl like snow from the plum-trees and the pear,

Till petals heaped between the window-shafts

In a drift die there.

A nurse in white, at the dawning, flower-foamed pane

Draws down the blinds, whose shadows scarcely stain

The white rugs on the floor, nor the silent bed

That rides the room like a frozen berg, its crest

Finally ridged with the austere line of the dead

Stretched out at rest.

Less than a year the fourfold feet had pressed

The peaceful floor, when fell the sword on their rest.

Yet soon, too soon, she had him home again

With wounds between them, and suffering like a guest

That will not go. Now suddenly going, the pain

Leaves an empty breast.