Poems (Piatt)/Volume 1/Enchanted

by Sarah Piatt

ENCHANTED.

She sat in a piteous hut,
 In a wood where poisons grew.
Withered was every leaf,
 And her face was withered too.
Like a sword the sharp wind cut
 Her worn heart through and through.

Away, and so far away,
 She looked for a light and a sign:
"Oh, he has not forgotten me!
 What should I care for to-day,
When all to-morrow is mine?
 I am content to stay."

On the heights the hail would beat,
 In the thorns would sink the snow,
And the chasms were weird with sound;
 Yet the years would come and go:
"Somewhere there is something sweet,
 And some time I shall know.

"There is a land close by,
 A land in reach of my arm;_
It is mine from shore to sea;—
 There the nightingales do fly,
There the flush of the rose is warm:
 I shall take it by and by.

"But the shape that guards the gate,
 Where my mirror waits to show
How beautiful I am,
 Oh, he makes me loth to go.
I wait, and I wait, and I wait,—
 Through fear of him, I know.

"But who breaks this charm of breath
 Enchantment himself must wear.
Two from each other shrink
 In the freezing dark, and stare: . . . .
Your kiss for my kiss, O Death!
 Each makes the other fair."