I <br />Now twenty-four or maybe twenty-five <br />Was the woman's age, and her white brow was sleek; <br />Lips parted in surprise, the flawless cheek; <br />The long brown hair coiled sullenly alive; <br />Her hands, dropt in her lap, could not arrive <br />At the novel on the table, being weak; <br />Nor breath, expunger of the mortal streak <br />Of nature, its own tenement contrive; <br /> <br />For look you how her body stiffly lies <br />Just as she left it, unprepared to stay, <br />The posture waiting on the sleeping eyes, <br />While the body's life, deep as a covered well, <br />Instinctive as the wind, busy as May, <br />Burns out a secret passageway to hell. <br /> <br />II <br />There is not anything to say to those <br />Speechless, who have stood up white to the eye <br />All night-till day, harrying the game too close, <br />Quarries the perils that at midnight lie <br />Waiting for those who hope to mortify <br />With foolish daylight their most anxious fear, <br />A bloodless and white fear that she may die <br />In the hushed room, and leave them soundless here: <br /> <br />There is no word that death can find to say <br />Deeper than life, savager than their time. <br />When Gabriel's trumpet ends all life's delay, <br />Will crash the beams of firmamental woe: <br />Not nature will sustain the even crime <br />Of death, though death sustains all nature, so.<br /><br />Allen Tate<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/inside-and-outside-2/
