Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

On the Acequia Madre

Alice Corbin

DEATH has come to visit us today,

He is such a distinguished visitor

Everyone is overcome by his presence—

“Will you not sit down—take a chair?”

But Death stands in the doorway, waiting to depart;

He lingers like a breath in the curtains.

The whole neighborhood comes to do him honor,

Women in black shawls and men in black sombreros

Sitting motionless against white-washed walls;

And the old man with the grey stubby beard

To whom death came,

Is stunned into silence.

Death is such a distinguished visitor,

Making even old flesh important.

But who now, I wonder, will take the old horse to pasture?