Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, FACADE: 24. AN OLD WOMAN LAMENTS IN SPRINGTIME, by EDITH SITWELL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

FACADE: 24. AN OLD WOMAN LAMENTS IN SPRINGTIME, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: I walk on grass as soft as wool
Last Line: That those heavenly branches made. . . .
Subject(s): Love


I WALK on grass as soft as wool,
Or fluff that our old fingers pull
From beaver or from miniver, --
Sweet-sounding as a dulcimer, --

A poor old woman creeping where
The young can never pry and stare.
I am so old, I should be gone, --
Too old to warm in the kind sun

My wrinkled face; my hat that flaps
Will hide it, and my cloak has laps
That trail upon the grass as I
Like some warm shade of spring creep by.

And all the laden fruit-boughs spread
Into a silver sound, but dead
Is the wild dew I used to know,
Nor will the morning music grow.

I sit beneath these coral boughs
Where the air's silver plumage grows
And flows like water with a sigh.
Fed with sweet milk of lilies, I

Still feel the dew like amber gums,
That from the richest spice-tree comes,
Drip down upon my turbanned head,
Trembling and ancient as the Dead,

Beneath these floating branches' shade.
Yet long ago, a lovely maid,
On grass, a fading silver tune
Played on an ancient dulcimer,
(And soft as wool of miniver)

I walked like a young antelope,
And Day was but an Ethiop,
Beside my fairness shining there --
Like black shade seemed the brightest air

When I was lovely as the snows, --
A fading starriness that flows . . .
Then, far-off Death seemed but the shade
That those heavenly branches made. . . .





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