We brought her back home on the morrow; but none of us ever may learn
Of the fight that she fought to keep sorrow at bay till her husband’s return.
Her girlhood had gone, and in going had left her in bitterness steeped:
How gladsome and gay was the sowing! how bitter the crop that she reaped!
Her girlhood had gone, and had left her a woman in all but in years—
Of laughter and joy had bereft her, and brought in their place nought but tears.
Yet still, as the months passed, a treasure was brought her by Love, ere he fled;
And garments of infantile measure she fashioned with needle and thread:
She fashioned with linen and laces and ribbons a nest for her bird,
While colour returned to her face as the bud of maternity stirred.
It blossomed and died: we arrayed it in all its soft splendour of white,
And sorrowing took it and laid it in the earth whence it sprung, out of sight:
She wept not at all—only whitened—as Death, in his pitiless quest,
Leant over her pillow and tightened the throat of the child at her breast.
