Tidemarks

Calm stood the old house
Long unpossessed,
Close beat its silence
Under her breast;
Out of its sills
Wreathed clear and forlorn
What echoing trumpets
Of what dead morn?
Standing with fingers
Wide-spread and chilly,
On the spangling hood
Of a wild pink lily
‘How many tidemarks
Since this house loved?
She spoke in a small voice unmoved
How many green tides
Wither again,
After this hour
Caught up from rain?
We looking down
From the sills to the waters,
I with cloak loosened,
Last of its daughters.’
But before they had entered
He paused and drew over,
Sandalling with dew
Her feet in the clover;
Down on her brown cheek
Straight drew he
A bough of old drudging
Mulberry tree;
And crushed the berries,
Ungathered, unblest,
Into her mouth,
Into her breast.
‘How many tidemarks
Since this house loved?
She spoke in a small voice unmoved
How many green tides
Wither again,
After this hour
Caught up from rain?
We looking down
From the sills to the waters,
I with cloak loosened,
The last, the very last, the last of its daughters.’

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