And sometimes in your crinkly hair
I'd twist a furry bough;
The spring is here, but I can't bear
The pussywillows—now.
12
HAZEL HALL
Hazel Hall was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1886. and came as a young girl with her parents to Portland, where she lived until she died on May 11, 1924. Because of scarlet fever and an injury from a fall, she was never able to walk after the age of 12. For several years she did needle-work to earn a living, but at length came additional frustration to this courageous invalid in failing eyesight. It was then that the writing of verses, which had been a succor to her spirit in her shut-in life, was turned to practical account, with poetry checks from magazines taking the place of wages from sewing. Her first accepted poem was published in the Boston Transcript in 1916. Later her market broadened to include such select magazines as Century, Harper's, Literary Review, Yale Review, Outlook, Bookman and the New Republic. Her books of poems consist of two volumes published while she was living and one volume published after her death—Curtains, 1921; Walkers, 1923; and Cry of Time, 1928. "Three Girls", given below, was selected by Braithvvaite as one of the five best poems of 1920.
Three Girls
From Walkers, 1923
Two of them go in the fluttery way
Of girls, with all that girlhood buys;
But one goes with a dream in her eyes.
Whose hair is learning scorn of curls,
But the eyes of one are like wide doors
Opening out on misted shores.
On to the end of life's short way;
Two will have what Jiving buys,
And one will have the dream in her eyes.
