White-faced friends in the midst of today laugh and listen and plan for the morrow; apart are the folk who sedately weigh slowly each trouble and minor sorrow— always the Why and the When and the How, and one hears them say: I really believe;— but she sits there, whom they cannot deceive, thinking behind her lace-capped brow how foolish they are, one and all. And her dropping chin leans, sharp and small, on the coral, white to match her shawl and her pale forehead's ivory tones. But sometimes, when sudden laughter rings, from under her lifted lids she brings two alert looks, displaying these hard things as when one presses a chest's secret springs and shows old heirlooms of amazing stones. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MAHMOUD by JAMES HENRY LEIGH HUNT THE MODERN MOTHER by ALICE MEYNELL TO CONSTANTIA, SINGING (1) by PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY NEXT DAY; IN THE TRAIN by LAWRENCE ALMA-TADEMA THE MOTHER-FAITH by EVERARD JACK APPLETON SONNET: 19 by RICHARD BARNFIELD CLIO, NINE ECLOGUES IN HONOUR OF NINE VIRTUES: APOLOGY TO CLEO by WILLIAM BASSE |