My heart—the wretched thing—is today
Cold, like those pale green mirrors
One sees in corridors . . .
They looked in with timid eyes, hungry
Perhaps for flattery, and smiled
Their happiest smiles before they
Walked away . . .
They left the mirror cold, and so
Beautiful; how much kinder to have
Left a great, sprawling crack, shaped
Like a spider’s web . . .
But why cry? or, why even gloat
In solitude? What does a woman lose
Or even gain from a love-affair?
The passions’ dying is not a death
At all but a sleep . . .
The night-wind walks my street
Tap-tapping, like a blinded
Man; its grief overcomes me; I crave
At this hour, not for faces that I knew
Or for the voices that I loved but
For sleep—a sleep which has like an Indian
Bride, proud loveless eyes
And a quiet tongue.