<h2><SPAN name="page107"></SPAN><span class="pagenum"></span>HUSKS</h2>
<p class="poetry"><span class="smcap">She</span> looked at her
neighbour’s house in the light of the waning day—<br/>
A shower of rice on the steps, and the shreds of a bride’s
bouquet.<br/>
And then she drew the shade, to shut out the growing gloom,<br/>
But she shut it into her heart instead. (Was that a voice
in the room?)</p>
<p class="poetry">‘My neighbour is sad,’ she sighed,
‘like the mother bird who sees<br/>
The last of her brood fly out of the nest to make its home in the
trees’—<br/>
And then in a passion of tears—‘But, oh, to be sad
like her:<br/>
Sad for a joy that has come and gone!’ (Did some one
speak, or stir?)</p>
<p class="poetry"><SPAN name="page108"></SPAN><span class="pagenum">p.
108</span>She looked at her faded hands, all burdened with costly
rings;<br/>
She looked on her widowed home, all burdened with priceless
things.<br/>
She thought of the dead years gone, of the empty years
ahead—<br/>
(Yes, something stirred and something spake, and this was what it
said:)</p>
<p class="poetry">‘<i>The voice of the Might Have Been
speaks here through the lonely dusk</i>;<br/>
<i>Life offered the fruits of love</i>; <i>you gathered only the
husk</i>.<br/>
<i>There are jewels ablaze on your breast where never a child has
slept</i>.’<br/>
She covered her face with her ringed old hands, and wept and wept
and wept.</p>
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