Ernest Rhys. A Breton Night. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

A Breton Night

By Ernest Rhys


THE WINTER seal is on the door.
Three women sit beside the fire
Silent, and watch their shadows sprawl
Like sombre wolfhounds on the floor.

One “Christus,” nailed upon the wall,	5
Pities the young wife great with child,
Whose mate lies drowned beneath the sea.
She cannot tell how to bear it all,

Or live till Noel sets her free,
When she need not fear the quick and dead,	10
That every nightfall step the stair,
Awaiting the Nativity.

Now she will rise in her despair
To look out through the leaden panes
Between the wall-bed and the hearth;	15
And hear the wind like sea-waves there.

She does not know how, in the earth,
The dark blind seed doth hear the wind,
And think of death, and dream of birth,
As the window sends the firelight forth.	20