A dozen times she washed her hands And moved, frail-pink, across the hall, And sat combing her pale-gold hair, And sat staring against the wall. Outside the sea would roar its blue Against the plumeless white of her. Along the sill a tawny cat Would lie, and daintily stretch and purr. Her eyes were green as icebergs are. Carved she was of a marble shaft; Pearly she was, with the luster gone. She combed her hair, and she was daft. And when her sister's child came home, Crying out beyond the stair, A look came on of a wild-cat thing Brought to bay in a jungle lair. A jade-green box, milky with light, She loved to hold. A day she sits, The child laughs out, she gets her up And hurls it, and laughs at the sorry bits. The child not hers; the box a well Of the empty loves and the clapperless bell; And of what sad reckoning she was born Only a father and mother can tell. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SOUVENIR by GEORGIA DOUGLAS JOHNSON THE DUNES OF INDIANA by EDGAR LEE MASTERS TROY PARK: 1. THE WARMTH OF SPRING by EDITH SITWELL FOR THE ANNIVERSARY OF JOHN KEATS' DEATH by SARA TEASDALE THE YOUNG MYSTIC by LOUIS UNTERMEYER AN ODE ON THE UNVEILING OF THE SHAW MEMORIA BOSTON COMMON, MAY 31, 1897 by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH SONNET TO GEORGE SAND: 2. A DESIRE by ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING |