Enchanted

SHE sat in a piteous hut In a wood where poisons grew;
Withered was every leaf,
And her face was withered too;
Like a sword the fierce wind cut
Her worn heart through and through.

Gray as the frost was her hair,
Dim as the dusk were her eyes,
As still as stone was her mouth;
Yet she knew that she was fair,
And she knew that she was wise.
Therefore she waited there.

Away, and so far away,
She looked for a light and a sign:
“ Oh, he has not forgotten me!
What should I care for to-day,
When all to-morrow is mine?
I am content to stay.”

On the heights the hail would beat,
In the thorns would sink the snow,
And the chasms were weird with sound;
Yet the years would come and go:
“ Somewhere there is something sweet,
And sometime I shall know.

“ There is a land close by,
A land in reach of my arm;
It is mine from shore to sea;
There the nightingales do fly,
There the flush of the rose is warm:
I shall take it by and by.

“ But the shape that guards the gate,
Where my mirror waits to show
How beautiful I am,
Oh, he makes me loath to go. I wait, and I wait, and I wait,
Through fear of him, I know.

“ But who breaks this charm of breath
Enchantment himself must wear.
Two from each other shrink
In the freezing dark, and stare . . .
Your kiss for my kiss, O Death!
Each makes the other fair.”