IF a leaf rustled, she would start:
And yet she died, a year ago.
How had so frail a thing the heart
To journey where she trembled so?
And do they turn and turn in fright,
Those little feet, in so much night?
The light above the poet-s head
Streamed on the page and on the cloth,
And twice and thrice there buffeted
On the black pane a white-winged moth:
-T was Annie-s soul that beat outside
And -Open, open, open!â? cried:
-I could not find the way to God;
There were too many flaming suns
For signposts, and the fearful road
Led over wastes where millions
Of tangled comets hissed and burned-
I was bewildered and I turned.
-O, it was easy then! I knew
Your window and no star beside.
Look up, and take me back to you!â?
-He rose and thrust the window wide.
-T was but because his brain was hot
With rhyming; for he heard her not.
But poets polishing a phrase
Show anger over trivial things;
And as she blundered in the blaze
Towards him, on ecstatic wings,
He raised a hand and smote her dead;
Then wrote -That I had died instead!â?
The White Moth
Sir Arthur Quiller-couch
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Poem topics: anger, god, heart, journey, light, night, rose, star, head, soul, fearful, white, wide, brain, start, easy, year, black, poet, I love you, Print This Poem , Rhyme Scheme
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