| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | The Tepid Hour | | By Eunice Tietjens |
| | From “Facets”
IN such a tepid night as this | |
| Strange formless sorrowings lie hid, | |
| Like melancholy in a kiss, | |
| Like what we dreamed in what we did— | |
| In such a tepid night as this. | 5 |
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| From out some shadowy depths of me | |
| Vague longings struggle, dreamer-wise. | |
| They stir and moan uneasily, | |
| Then sleep again, too weak to rise | |
| From out those shadowy depths of me. | 10 |
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| Life holds me by so frail a thread | |
| That scarce I feel the drag of it. | |
| Alive I seem, and yet half dead. | |
| But quick or dead I care no whit, | |
| Life holds me by so frail a thread. | 15 |
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| I would not snap the thread, and yet | |
| Light as it is I grudge its hold. | |
| ’Twere broken with no more regret | |
| Than lingers round a love grown old. | |
| I would not snap the thread, and yet….. | 20 | | | |
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