Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


LOAN by HORTENSE KING FLEXNER

First Line: NOT ILLNESS BUT HER OWN INTENT
Last Line: TO BORROW WHAT SHE HATES.
Subject(s): ABSENCE; SEPARATION; ISOLATION;

Not illness but her own intent
Had brought remoteness to her eye,
The look of one who freely went
Half way to die.

For as the locust lives and plans
To leave his house and be away,
So is she one who closely scans
Dividing lines in clay.

She is not braided in the flesh,
Nor neatly woven to the bone,
But ever tries the weakening mesh,
Foretastes oblivion.

There is strange violence stirring where,
Containing life and death, she waits;
Not without passion does she dare
To borrow what she hates.



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