Words for the Chisel (collection)/Mirror

by Genevieve Taggard

For works with similar titles, see Mirror.

Mirror

A young girl saw in a mirror-glassThe sun like a spot of smitten brass;She saw three lines of black birds pass;A crooked tree, a curly cloud;A new-mown field and a country road,—These the silver mirror showed.

And when the novice gazed againShe saw Orion pure and plain;The moon rode in and ploughed a laneOf noiseless silver in the glass;A black hour—then: the spot of brass,—Back whence they flew, the beaked birds pass. . . .

And this is all she saw for yearsUnless you add her silly tears,Her own peaked face where her own face peers;

Unless you want to count her ownBlue eyes she neared and pondered onAnd closed and opened all alone.

Until one day it seemed that down,The vacant road of ribbon-brownShe saw a mortal figure blown.It shaped and strode and was a manNaked and negligent and tan,With animal loveliness it ran. . . .

Running too large, too light and tall—The torso flashed, a living wall, Slim hips, belly panting,—allBlurred in a loop of silver smoke,Cleared, then with a quiet strokeCrash!—the crystal mirror broke!