 | The Poems and Plays of William Vaughn Moody |  |
136
III
She gave her message darkly in the gates,And waited trembling. At day-fall he came.
She knew him not beneath his whitened hair;
But when at length she knew him, and was known,
The whitened hair, the bent and listening frame,
The savage misery of the sidelong eyes,
Fell on her heart with strangling. So it was
That now for many days she held her peace,
Abiding with him till he seemed again
The babe she bare first in the wilderness,
Her maiden fruits to Adam, the new joy
The desert bloomed with, which the desert stars
Whispered concerning. Yet she held her peace,
Until he seemed a young man in the house,
A gold frontlet of pride and a green cedar;
Then, leading him apart, Eve told her wish,
Not faltering now nor uttering it far off,
But as a sovereign mother to her son
Speaks simple destiny. He looked at her
Dimly, as if he saw her not; then stooped,
Sharpening his brows upon her. With a cry
She laid fierce, shaken hands about his breast,
Drew down his neck, and harshly from his brow
Pushing the head-band and the matted locks,
137
She kissed him on the Sign. Cain bowed his head
Upon her shoulder, saying, “I will go!”
| The Poems and Plays of William Vaughn Moody | |