William Laird. Buds. Harriet Monroe, ed. Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912-22

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

Buds

By William Laird


WE went (we both were boiling young) one night
To see six bouts on—never mind the street;
And passed, beneath a gas-lamp’s ghastly light,
A woman of prey, no longer fair, her feet
Long turned towards death. My comrade knew she came	5
From Ardmore town, where still they buzzed her shame.

He hailed her by a childish name which nigh
Had been forgotten, surely never heard
Since days in quiet Ardmore long gone by,
Irrevocable: “Buds! why, Buds!”—the word	10
Of what was gone. She hid her face in pain,
With God knows what hell-ringing through her brain.

What arrows then of utter woe might stir
Her trampled soul, I have no skill to guess:
The white name fouled against the front of her—	15
The name of hope mocking her hopelessness!
However, being boiling young, that night
We phrased no moral—went and saw the fight.