She, I, And They

I WAS sitting, She was knitting, And the portraits of our fore-folk hung around; When there struck on us a sigh; “Ah—what is that?” said I: “Was it not you?” said she. “A sigh did sound.”

I had not breathed it, Nor the night-wind heaved it, And how it came to us we could not guess; And we looked up at each face Framed and glazed there in its place, Still hearkening; but thenceforth was silentness.

Half in dreaming, “Then its meaning,” Said we, “must be surely this; that they repine That we should be the last Of stocks once unsurpassed, And unable to keep up their sturdy line.”

1916.