Portrait

SHE has no need to fear the fall

Of harvest from the laddered reach

Of orchards, nor the tide gone ebbing

From the steep beach.

Nor hold to pain's effrontery

Her body's bulwark, stern and savage,

Nor be a glass, where to forsee

Another's ravage.

What she has gathered, and what lost,

She will not find to lose again.

She is possessed by time, who once

Was loved by men.

Louise Bogan

Index to poems in the collection by Louise Bogan