| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | Cowardice | | By Hazel Hall |
| | From “Repetitions”
DISCOMFORT sweeps my quiet, as a wind | |
| Leaps at trees and leaves them cold and thinned. | |
| Not that I fear again the mastery | |
| Of winds, for holding my indifference dear | |
| I do not feel illusions stripped from me. | 5 |
| And yet this is a fear— | |
| A fear of old discarded fears, of days | |
| That cried out at irrevocable ways. | |
| I cower for my own old cowardice— | |
| For hours that beat upon the wind’s broad breast | 10 |
| With hands as impotent as leaves are: this | |
| Robs my new hour of rest. | |
| I thought my pride had covered long ago | |
| All the old scars, like broken twigs in snow; | |
| I thought to luxuriate in rich decay, | 15 |
| As some far-seeing tree upon a hill; | |
| But, startled into shame for an old day, | |
| I find that I am but a coward still. | | | | |
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