Page:American Poetry 1922.djvu/177



you: men have writ and women have said they loved, but as the Pythoness stands by the altar, intense and may not move;

till the fumes pass over; and may not falter nor break, till the priest has caught the words that mar or make a deme or a ravaged town;

so I, though my knees tremble, my heart break, must note the rumbling, heed only the shuddering down in the fissure beneath the rock of the temple floor;

must wait and watch and may not turn nor move, nor break from my trance to speak so slight, so sweet, so simple a word as love. 163