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Show NINETTE. By Wilbur Underwood. How should tho rainbow know What purpose gives "the sudden blow That strikes it stunned unto the earth? Not worse my mother's pangs at birth Than all the pain that caught my breath When I looked on my beauty's death. I thought I should be always young, One flash and there the white truth stung And stared me in the morrored space The haggard line upon my face; Mary, Mother, pity me; I shut my eyes but still I see. I half forgot the mortal cold I felt to know I should be old; So long ago, so long it seems . This death's-head stared from out my dreams, And quickly made my soul aware I who had been so light and fair. I do not pray, I do not weep, But wide-eyed watch a horror creep Upon my soul until the day Is darkened and the sunlight grey; There is no living thing that I Should care to speak with though I die. It seemed 'twere better had I died; But now I put that thought aside When spent is all the passion wild; I am become a little child, And only for some corner pray To hide me from the light of day. Mother of Sorrows, one place yet Will shelter this poor, strange Ninette And shield her from the bitter light; I shall be veiled, a Carmelite; But 'neath the habit coarse my bare, White, little feet will still be fair. From "A Book of Masks." |