Winifred Welles
Reading edition
Winifred Welles was born at Norwich Town, Connecticut, January 26, 1893, and educated in the vicinity of her home.
Her frail and delicately fashioned lyrics are the distinguishing feature of The Hesitant Heart (1920). This first volume, so appropriately named, has a frank tenderness that never grows maudlin, a wistful introspection that never forgets to sing.
386
FROM A CHINESE VASE
Roaming the lonely garden, he and I
Pursue each other to the fountain’s brim,
And there grow quiet—woman and butterfly—
The frail clouds beckon me, the flowers tempt him.
My thoughts are rose-like, beautiful and bright,
Folded precise as petals are, and wings
Uplift my dreaming suddenly in flight,
And fill my soul with jagged colorings.
The waters tangle like a woman’s hair
Above the dim reflection of a face—
He thinks those are his own lips laughing there,
His own breasts curving under silk and lace.
How shall we know our real selves, he and I,
Which is the woman, which the butterfly?
HUMILIATION
How nakedly an animal
Lies down on earth to die,
Unmindful of the shining air,
And unashamed of sky.
But men and women under roofs
Draw shades and hush the floor,
And furtively they lay their dead
Behind a darkened door.
387
LOVE SONG FROM NEW ENGLAND
In every solemn tree the wind
Has rung a little lonesome bell,
As sweet and clear, as cool and kind
As my voice bidding you farewell.
This is an hour that gods have loved
To snatch with bare, bright hands and hold.
Mine, with a gesture, grey and gloved,
Dismiss it from me in the cold.
Closely as some dark-shuttered house
I keep my light. How should you know,
That, as you turn beneath brown boughs,
My heart is breaking in the snow?