Louise Adele Carter: One Listens

“I heard Death singing.
Lone was the darkening way;
The song was a glad song, ringing
Far, faint and gay;
But pale poppies were clinging
To the feet that went that way.

Gay, faint bugles of Death
Airily blowing;
Poppies of strange, cold breath
Frailly growing;
And around and above and beneath
A faint wind blowing.

A weak wind wearily blowing,
Like a blown winding-sheet,
That wrapped me in its dread flowing
From face to feet;
A wind that seemed as if blowing
Between the earth and my feet.

Far—farther than wonder
Could follow, or dreams,
The sunken sun lay under
The furthest streams;
Far beyond longing or wonder,
Or dreams.

Death’s song like a nightingale’s cry
Through that lone dark,
Pierced it, wildly and high;
And my heart said, Hark!—
’Tis the nightingale’s cry!
Nay, said my soul, the lark!

But poppies impeded my treading;
Sleep and great fear fell upon me—
What dews of what cold shedding
Were these shed upon me?
Behind me no way for treading,
No way beyond me.

And gay, faint bugles of Death
Airily blowing;
Poppies of strange cold breath
Frailly growing;
And around and above and beneath
A faint wind blowing.”