[BURWASH] INAUGURAL INTRODUCTION TO SECTION II 3 
Hushed is the face that was wont to brighten with laughter 
When I sang at the mill, 
And silence unbroken shall greet the sorrowful dawns hereafter, 
The house shall be still. 
Voice after voice takes up the burden of wailing,— 
Do you heed, do you hear?—in the high-priest’s house by the wall. 
But mine is grief, and their sorrow is all unavailing,— 
Will he wake at their call? 
Something I saw of the broad dim wings half-folding 
The passionless brow. 
Something I saw of the sword that the shadowy hands were 
holding,— 
What matters it now? 
I held you close, dear face, as I knelt and hearkened 
To the wind that cried last night like a soul in sin, 
When the broad, bright stars dropped down and the soft sky 
darkened, 
And the presence moved therein. 
T have heard men speak in the market place of the city, 
Low-voiced, in a breath, 
Of a god who is stronger than ours, and who knows not changing 
nor pity, 
Whose anger is death. 
Nothing I know of the Lords of the outland races, 
But Amon is gentle and Hathor the mother is mild, 
And who would descend from the light of the Peaceful Places, 
To war on a child? 
Yet here he lies, with a scarlet pomegranate petal 
Blown down on his cheek. 
The slow sun sinks to the sand like a shield of some burnished 
metal, 
But he does not speak. 
I have called, I have sung, but he neither will hear nor waken; 
So lightly, so whitely, he lies in the curve of my arm, 
Like a feather let fall from the bird that the arrow hath taken, 
Who could see him, and harm? 
The swallow flies home to her sleep in the eaves of the altar, 
And the crane to her nest !— 
So do we sing o’er the mill, and why, ah! why should I falter, 
