Page:The Dial (Volume 68).djvu/548

And gives him with all her frail body
A poor little winter-flower she has.

And see how he sobs and sobs
Taking in his hands, clumsily,
The flower and the little girl’s hands:

The forlorn woman with the wan smile,
Who has watched all this in silence,
Begins to speak now as though dreaming,
Her eyes wide open, she begins to speak:

"There came to us a man here who was not one of us . . .
He was not old, as we are, with woes and sufferings,
He bore himself as do no doubt the sons of kings,
And yet how much he had the ways of being one of us!

No one has ever spoken to me as he spoke to me,
Just asking if he might sit down and drink;
There he was leaning, half across the table,
And I watched him all the time that he stayed there;

And when he had risen, making me weep
Because he was so like one I knew when I was sixteen . . .
He opened the door
To return into the wind—
But when he learned why
My tears came,
He closed the door again.

And all that evening, and all that night,
His eyes and his voice fondled me,
And the tangles of my pain he smoothed out.

And in spite of his youth and in spite of my cold bed,
In spite of my empty breasts and my hollow shoulders,
He stayed a whole day to make love to me, he made love tome . . .

And then that little girl was born
Of the love that he pitied me with . . ."