Poems (Piatt)/Volume 1/Enchanted
For works with similar titles, see Enchanted.
ENCHANTED.
She sat in a piteous hut, In a wood where poisons grew.Withered was every leaf, And her face was withered too.Like a sword the sharp wind cut Her worn heart through and through.
Away, and so far away, She looked for a light and a sign:"Oh, he has not forgotten me! What should I care for to-day,When all to-morrow is mine? I am content to stay."
On the heights the hail would beat, In the thorns would sink the snow,And the chasms were weird with sound; Yet the years would come and go:"Somewhere there is something sweet, And some time I shall know.
"There is a land close by, A land in reach of my arm;_It is mine from shore to sea;— There the nightingales do fly,There the flush of the rose is warm: I shall take it by and by.
"But the shape that guards the gate, Where my mirror waits to showHow beautiful I am, Oh, he makes me loth to go.I wait, and I wait, and I wait,— Through fear of him, I know.
"But who breaks this charm of breath Enchantment himself must wear.Two from each other shrink In the freezing dark, and stare: . . . .Your kiss for my kiss, O Death! Each makes the other fair."