Quenched

All night she tore at the soft skeins of love,

The pitiless bright skeins of remembering-

Wild cherry bloom, a violet night of spring,

A voice, and brook-clear eyes; no other thing.

Yet she was bound, she had no wit to loose

Those twirled and silken strands, that choking noose.

She lay burnt out as after a long drouth,

The small fires crisping at her breast, her mouth.

And then she saw the daybreak, high above

The city roofs, and-blessed sight-the snow

Petaling down, monotonous and slow,

The great snow-needles stitching row on row

The red house-fronts. Then, like a flame wind-drawn,

She rose, and plunged into the snowy dawn.