Poetry
Seven Days
ONE too strange for tongue to tell
Came to speak with me ; He opened a door where no door is And closed it fast with a key.
He moved to my side in his grey green gown
And my heart rang loud as a bell ; He said, " I have come with a lily, a bird, And a kind of laughter as well.
" This, my delight, is the blood-red lily, This is the yellow bird, And this is the laughter sweeter than any That mortal woman has heard.
" Take then, take my long lily, Even the bird is yours.
You shall learn to laugh, as I learned, by weeping Seven days within doors. Now you shall know how all men grieve When deep troubles betide : How hate and envy strike at the heart ; And older sorrows beside."
Seven days she grieved by the lily And wept by the singing bird, But on the seventh she laughed with the laughter No man ever has heard.
CLARISSA GRAVES.
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