. POETRY.

THE WOMAN WITH THE DEAD SOUL

[AN ATTEMPT TO RENDER IMAGINATIVELY A MODERN TRAGEDY. THE HORROR OF THE TRAGEDY LIES IN THE COMBINATION OF DEATH WITHIN, AND NEATNESS WITHOUT, SO OFTEN TO BE SEEN IN OUR GREAT CITIES.]

ALLURED by the disastrous tavern-light,

Unhappy things flew in out of the night ; And ever the sad human swarm returned, Some crazy-fluttering, and some half-hurried.

Amid the thwarted workmen splashed with mire, The disillusioned women sipping fire, Slow tasting bargainers amid the flare, And lurid ruminators, I was 'ware Of that cold face from which I may not run; Which even now doth stab me in the sun.

That face was of a woman that alone Sat sewing; a white liquor by her shone.

Speckless, arranged, no single braid awry, Pe pared and combed, she stitched incessantly. She turned her eyes on me; all blank they shone Like windows opposite the peer of dawn.

So cold her gaze that I bowed down my head Trembling; it seemed to me that she was dead; And that those hands mechanically went, As if the life that to her limbs was lent, Subsiding in her was not wholly spent.

You who have wailed above the quiet clay, That on the bed unrecognising lay ; Yet think how I stood mourning by the sido Of her who sat, yet seemed as she had died : Cold, yet so busy, though so nimble, dead; Whose fingers ever at the sewing sped.

I spoke with her, and in slow terror guessed How she, so ready for perpetual rest, So smoothly combed and for the ground prepared.

Whose eyes already fixed beyond me stared, Could sidle unobserved, and softly glide Amid the crowd that wist net she had died.

Gently she spoke; not once her cheek grew pale; And I translate the dreadful placid tale.

She with a soul was born ; she felt it leap Within her, it could wonder, laugh, and weep But like persisting rain on ocean blear The days descended on her spirit drear; Life, an eternal want in sky dead-grey, Denying steadily, starved it away ; London ignoring with deliberate stare.

Slowly the delicate thing began to wear.

She felt it ailing for she knew not what; Feebly she wept, but she could aid it not.

Ah, not the stirring child within the womb Hath such an urgent need of light and room.

And hungry grew her soul : she looked around, But nothing to allay that famine found.

She felt it die a little every day, Flutter less wildly, and more feebly pray.

Stiller it grew ; at times she felt it pull Imploring thinly something beautiful ; And in the night was painfully awake, And struggled in the darkness till day-break.

For not at once, not without any strife, It died ; at times it started back to life ; Now at some angel evening after rain Builded like early Paradise again ; Or at some human face, or starry sky, The silent tremble of infinity, Or odour of strange fields at midnight sweet„ Or soul of summer dawn in the dark street Slowly she was aware her soul had died Within her body : for no more it cried, Vexed her no more; and now monotonous life More easy came; she was exempt from strife.

Yet for a time more heavily and slow She walked, and indolently worked, as though.

About with her she could not help but bring Within her busy body the dead thing.

When I had heard her tell without a tear What now I have translated, in great fear Toward her I leaned and "0 my sister" cried, "My sister "; but my hand she put aside, Lest I her decent dress might disarray ; And so smiled on me that I might not stay.

And I remembered that to one long dead I spoke : "No sound shall rouse her now," I said,.

"Not Orpheus touching in that gloom his chord,.

Not even the special whisper that restored Pale Lazaras ; yet still she seems to run, And hurries eager in the noonday sun; Industrious, careful, kempt, till she at last Run down, inaccurate, aside is cast" While thus I whispered, and in wonder wild Could not unloose my gaze from her, the child Plucked at her dress, and the dead woman rose; Up to the mirror silently ehn goes, Lightly a loose tress touches at her ear; She gazes in her own eyes without fear Deliberately then with fingers light She smoothed her dress and stole into the night.

STEPHEN PHILLIPS'.