She heard the children playing in the sun, <br />And through her window saw the white-stemmed trees <br />Sway like a film of silver in the breeze <br />Under the purple hills; and one by one <br />She noted chairs and cabinets, and spun <br />The pattern of her bed's pale draperies: <br />Yet all the while she knew that each of these <br />Was a dull lie, in irony begun. <br />For down in hell she lay, whose livid fires <br />Love may not quench, whose pangs death may not quell. <br />The round immensity of earth and sky <br />Shrank to a point that speared her. Loves' desires, <br />Darkened to torturing ministers of hell, <br />Whose mockery of joy deepened the lie. <br />Little eternities the black hours were, <br />That no beginning knew, that knew no end. <br />Day waned, and night came like a faithless friend, <br />Bringing no joy; till slowly over her <br />A numbness grew, and life became a blur, <br />A silence, an oblivion, a dark blend <br />Of dim lost agonies, whose downward trend <br />Led into time's eternal sepulchre. <br />And yet, when, after aeons infinite <br />Of dark eclipse she woke—lo, it was day! <br />The pictures hung upon the walls, each one; <br />Under the same rose-patterned coverlet <br />She lay; spring was still young, and still the play <br />Of happy children sounded in the sun.<br /><br />Harriet Monroe<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/pain-570/
