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A Child on the Street
STRANGE that she can keep with ease | |
| A pace so free and fleet, | |
| When such relentless destinies | |
| Stalk at her feet. | |
| |
| Strange she does not see the blur | 5 |
| Where their shadows run | |
| With her footfall, sinister | |
| In the sun. | |
| |
| Some are vague as shadow cast | |
| By clouds where long hills dip, | 10 |
| And some sharp like the broken mast | |
| Of a drifted ship. | |
| |
| Still with here incredulous tread | |
| Defying the darkened ground, | |
| She keeps a pace whose echoes shed | 15 |
| Laughing sound. | |
| |
| And still close at her tripping heel | |
| The old shadows stir, | |
| Deepening as they steal | |
| Nearer her. | 20 |
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A Very Old Woman
She passes by though long ago | |
| Time drained the life out of her tread; | |
| She died then, yet she does not know | |
| That she is dead. | |
| |
| Her footsteps are indefinite | 25 |
| With sound, and who are dead should pass | |
| Sandaled as the wind when it | |
| Moves through the grass. | |
| |
| Her shadow twitches on the walk, | |
| And who are not of life should run | 30 |
| Shadowless as a lily’s stalk | |
| In full day’s sun. | |
| |
| Yet these cling to her—stricken sound | |
| And shadow casting ragged stains; | |
| They drag behind her on the ground | 35 |
| Like broken chains. | |
| |
| It is silence mastering her tread, | |
| Darkness, insidious and slow, | |
| Blotting her imprint … but she is dead | |
And does not know.
The New Republic | 40 |
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