PORTRAIT OF A WOMAN
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he pathos in your face is like a peace,It is like resignation or a graceWhich smiles at the surceaseOf hope. But there is in your faceThe shadow of pain, and there is a traceOf memory of pain. I look at you again and again,And hide my looks lest your quick eye perceivesMy search for your despair.I look at your pale hands--I look at your hair;And I watch you use your hands, I watch the flareOf thought in your eyes like light that interweavesA flutter of color running under leaves--Such anguished dreams in your eyes!And I listen to you speakWords like crystals breaking with a tinkle,Or a star's twinkle.Sometimes as we talk you riseAnd leave the room, and then I rub a streakOf a tear from my cheek. You tell me such magical thingsOf pictures, books, romanceAnd of your life in FranceIn the varied music of exquisite words,And in a voice that sings. All things are memory now with you,For poverty girdsYour hopes, and only your dreams remain.And sometimes here and thereI see as you turn your head a whitened hair,Even when you are smiling most.And a light comes in your eyes like a passing ghost,And a color runs through your cheeks as freshAs burns in a girl's flesh.Then I can shut my eyes and feel the painThat has become a part of you, though I feignLaughter myself. One sees another's bruiseAnd shakes his thought out of it shuddering.So I turn and clamp my will lest I bringYour sorrow into my flesh, who cannot chooseBut hear your words and laughter,And watch your hands and eyes. Then as I think you over afterI have gone from you, and your faceComes to me with its graceOf memory of unfound love:You seem to me the image of all womenWho dream and keep under smiles the grief thereof,Or sew, or sit by windows, or read booksTo hide their Secret's looks.And after a time go out of life and leaveNo uttered words but in their silence grieveFor Life and for the things no tongue can tell:Why Life hurts so, and why Love haunts and hurtsPoor men and women in this demi-hell. Perhaps your pathos means that it is wellDeath in his time the aspiring torch inverts,And all tired flesh and haunted eyes and handsMoving in painéd whiteness are put underThe soothing earth to brighten April's wonder.
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