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

Pain

SHE heard the children playing in the sun,

And through her window saw the white-stemmed trees

Sway like a film of silver in the breeze

Under the purple hills; and one by one

She noted chairs and cabinets, and spun

The pattern of her bed’s pale draperies:

Yet all the while she knew that each of these

Was a dull lie, in irony begun.

For down in hell she lay, whose livid fires

Love may not quench, whose pangs death may not quell.

The round immensity of earth and sky

Shrank to a point that speared her. Loves, desires,

Darkened to torturing ministers of hell,

Whose mockery of joy deepened the lie.

Little eternities the black hours were,

Day waned, and night came like a faithless friend,

Bringing no joy; till slowly over her

A numbness grew, and life became a blur,

A silence, an oblivion, a dark blend

Of dim lost agonies, whose downward trend

Led into time’s eternal sepulchre.

And yet, when, after aeons infinite

Of dark eclipse she woke—lo, it was day!

The pictures hung upon the walls, each one;

Under the same rose-patterned coverlet

She lay; spring was still young, and still the play

Of happy children sounded in the sun.