Spencer Heath Archive

Item 578

Carbon on a half-sheet of paper

November 2, 1936

BARRIER

(After the manner of Edna Millay)

Time, distance, silence, — bear me no relief;

The smiles and wiles of others bring no gain.

She whispers in the weeping of the rain

And makes me sharer in its stricken grief,

The night of darkness long, the sunshine brief

And last year’s ashes emblem of my pain;

But last year’s loving, longing, must remain

As prone and broken as the trodden sheaf.

There are so many places where I dread

To go — so hallowed by her loveliness they were.

I enter with relief some quiet place

Where never fell her foot nor shone her face

And say, “From here her spirit never fled,”

And then sink down, for here is less of her.