Lame Lady
Reading edition
A POOR lame lady limps along Low sloping fields of tender green, She’d love to break into a song Or dance, a figure slim, serene. All nature seems a parquet floor To please the sense, to please the eye, And Lazarus forgets each sore Beneath the thickly-coated sky. The poor lame lady senses whole The shafts of coloured warmth arise, A thirsty solitude of soul Looms in her vague pathetic eyes. The hollow spells of Spring are fleet And quick thoughts clatter through her head.... “An awkward duck with webbèd feet!... Ah! better far to lie a-bed.” In bed her lameness will not leer, For Sleep’s compassionate and kind, And she will dance and sing and hear The crooning of a phantom wind. For then her body’s cage-doors wide Are opened, and the spirit free Flutters, and in a burst of pride Dances before Eternity.