Poems (Storrie)/Retribution

by Agnes Louisa Storrie

For works with similar titles, see Retribution.

Retribution.

I sought—I—in my gown of silk
 For a blossom that I might wear,
Dew-wet lilies as white as milk,
 Should I twine them in my hair?
But the pallor that lay on their ivory tips
Was the hue that flashed to thy stern shut lips
 When I wrenched our hands apart,
And I turned away, with a sob in my throat,
For out from the petals there seemed to float
 The wraith of thy wounded heart.

Then I turned, and my smile came back again
 As I plucked me a yellow rose,
No ghostly phantom of buried pain
 Could its sun-kissed leaves enclose,
But it stabbed me deep, for its yellow gloss
Was the same rich hue as the golden dross
 With which my soul was bought,
And I crushed it under a passionate heel
As a loathly thing that should know and feel
 The evil it had wrought.

Then I ran—I—in the dewy night
 And I sought some sweet, wild thing—
Some wayside blossom, frail and bright,
 That could not hold a sting.
And mine eyes were dim, for my tears fell fast,
But I gathered a fair field-flower at last,
 And my heart within was hot
As I trembling drew to the lighted room,
A ghost looked out from the turquoise bloom—
 I had plucked a forget-me-not!