Carlyle F. McIntyre. The Mourners. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22.

The Mourners

By Carlyle F. McIntyre


From “Rodomontades” THUS I first saw her: brooding secretly,
Framed like a maid within a trysting gate
Of shadows; like a hidden memory
Which knows its power to hurt, and thus can wait.
A golden melancholy brushed her face,	5
As she tore petals from an old regret
Of some long-withered blossom. Oh, the chase
Of time had left her somehow in his debt.
Like a tired traveller, I stopped to ask
Her charity; but slowly leaf by leaf	10
She stripped her flower. Hers was the woman’s task
To sit in mourning, mine to fly from grief.