Katharine Lee Bates
“The Rest Is Silence” III
When the bruised heart, bewildered first and numb,
Quickened to pain, how passing strange it seemed
To miss her comfort! She, who still esteemed
Old lore above the schools, would she not come
With potency of hoarded balsamum,
To heal the hurt? Thus craving her, I dreamed.
Before me, sundering east from west, there gleamed
A marble wall, illimitable, dumb,
A blank of white! when lo, her own sweet face,
With no more halo than the crispy lace
I knew so well, from sudden casement smiled,
--Her blithe, audacious self, infringing so
With stolen peep Death's new punctiliom,
Breaking his code to reassure her child.