Page:The Book of the Homeless (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1916).djvu/264

THE BOOK OF THE HOMELESS We have forsworn the dance, and grief shall be the burden of our song.

Yesterday, in the night, a sister came knock-knocking at our door, the door of the virgins. A maid as we are maids, she came in to us, all weeping, and said:

"I am the daughter of Poland. Sisters of Britain, sisters of Wales, do you know the dance that your Polish sisters dance, and the songs they sing.? The grave and the funeral garland are their song. Like black poppies and dark corn-flowers sprinkled on the plain, they move in sad lines, from night to morning digging graves; and in those graves they lay their bridegrooms and their lovers. This, my sisters, has the summer brought to Poland, and these have been our bridal beds."

And having spoken, the daughter of the East grew pale, and drooped her dark head upon her neck and died.

And you who stand beside the hedge-rows, what was your spring-time, what your heavy summer? Turn toward us the wet emeralds of your eyes: answer, golden daughters of the sun—our sisters of Wales!

III

We are the young women and the beloved. Little sisters, what are you but the betrothed?

A year of devouring love, a year of longing; long year in the valley of parched shadow—year of loneliness and grief!

See, we are dying of love, and none to slake us. Worst waste of all, our hearts are useless; we are dying of ourselves and of all life. O young girls, little do you know of the hearts of women beloved, and lovers' tears like blood!

Little do you know of the harvest we have reaped, or of the meaning of that funeral train that comes across the meadows, parting the hedges to right and left and bearing a hidden treasure like a monstrance born across the wheat. [ 148 ]