Poems (Tree)/The Curtains are Drawn as though it still were Night

by Iris Tree

THE curtains are drawn as though it still were night,A slip of dawn between them is a dangling silver ribbon;And all about the room is quietness—Each patient chairErect, alert, in place. A letter on the table and a bookLie as you left them, now bereft of purpose—Garish a little in the room's sedateness, youReturning dressed so frivolously in all your coloured clothes!How grey and sober, full of placid witThe furniture, the pictures on the wall;How steely swift the light, stabbing you to the heartAs you stand at the window, bright as rushing blood.Garish your hair, your shoes, your startling chalky faceAnd white, white gloves . . .What time is it? . . . Still ticks the tireless clock,With face grimacing . . . nearly six it is. . . .Yet hurries not nor lingers, like our hearts,For in its dial eternity is housed—A cock should crow . . . there are no cocks in town!But a water cart with surly noise belowGrates unconcerned along the disconsolate street.How cold and how familiar all these things,To you so lonely in the enormous dawnSlowly unfastening that vermilion dress . . .

1916