Impressions: A Book of Verse/In the Morning

by Lilla Cabot Perry

 

IN THE MORNING

THE first cold grayness through the pane is stealing,
And blinding terror with the rising sun
Strikes on my shrinking heart and bids it shun
The inexorable day, which in revealing
My wakeful grief shows that which knows no healing,
Since not for me, but for a dearer one,
And not for innocent pain but sin that's done—
Done, unfoigettable and past repealing—

All night I've looked into the eyes of sorrow,
And still she gazes at me with your eyes,
In whose loved depths such anguished question lies,
As if from mine some piteous hope they'd borrow.
The day is come and soon you will be here,
God give me strength! I fear, I fear, I fear!