Small child with the pinched face,
Why do you stare
With screwed-up eyes under a shock
Of dull carrot hair?
--Child in the long, torn frock,
Crouched in the warm dust:
Why do you stare, as if
Stare you must?
* * * * *
Fairies in gossamer,
Hero and warrior,
Queens in their cherry gowns,
Wizards and witches:
Dream you of such as these?
Palaces? Orange-trees?
Dream you of swords and crowns,
Child of the ditches?
_Still in the warm dust
Sits she and stares; as if
Stare she must,
Pale eyes that see through:
Soon I must stare too:_
Soon through the fierce glare
Loom things that are not there:
Out of the blind Past
Savages grim:
Negroes and muleteers,
Saxons and wanderers
Tall as a ship's mast,
Spectral and dim.
_Stirring the race's dust,
Stares she as stare she must._
_Fade they: but still the glare
Shimmers her copper hair._
Eight years of penury,
Whining and beggary,
Famine and cursing,
Hunger and sharp theft:
Death comes to such as these
Under the sobbing trees.
The cold stars nursing
Those that are left.
_Angel and devil peers
Through those pale eyes of hers,_
Child of the Wide Earth,
Born at the World's birth,
Grave with the World's pain,
Mirthless and tearless:
Widowed from babyhood,
Child without childhood,
Stained with an earthy stain,
Loveless and fearless:
My God is overhead:
Yours must be cold. Or dead.
--Child with the pinched face
Why do you stare
With so much knowledge under your shock
Of wild matted hair?