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From “In London”
I SAT there in the dark | |
| Of the room and of my mind | |
| Thinking of men’s treasons and bad faith, | |
| Sinking into the pit of my own weakness | |
| Before their strength of cunning. | 5 |
| Out over the gardens came the sound of someone | |
| Playing five-finger exercises on the piano. | |
| |
| Then | |
| I gathered up within me all my powers | |
| Until outside of me was nothing: | 10 |
| I was all— | |
| All stubborn, fighting sadness and revulsion. | |
| |
| And one came from the garden quietly | |
| And stood beside me. | |
| She laid her hand on my hair; | 15 |
| She laid her cheek on my forehead | |
| And caressed me with it. | |
| But all my being rose to my forehead | |
| To fight against this outside thing. | |
| Something in me became angry, | 20 |
| Withstood like a wall, | |
| And would allow no entrance— | |
| I hated her. | |
| |
| “What is the matter with you, dear?” she said. | |
| “Nothing,” I answered, | 25 |
| “I am thinking.” | |
| She stroked my hair and went away; | |
| And I was still gloomy, angry, stubborn. | |
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| Then I thought: | |
| She has gone away; she is hurt; | 30 |
| She does not know | |
| What poison has been working in me. | |
| |
| Then I thought: | |
| Upstairs, her child is sleeping; | |
| And I felt the presence | 35 |
| Of the fields we had walked over, the roads we had followed, | |
| The flowers we had watched together, | |
| Before it came. | |
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| She had touched my hair, and only then did I feel it; | |
| And I loved her once again. | 40 |
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