Sidney Keyes

There’s hard wind yet and a sad road
Between the walking woman
And her deadly spouse, the iron lover.

O my hair has fallen and my man
Has fallen and my fruitful time is over:
There is a hard wind and a sad road.

There’s a jangled verse, a cry
Beating behind that woman’s face.
O my eyes are drowned and my man
Is drowned. Who loves a dead man’s grace,
A drowned man’s kisses or a blind man’s eye?
Cries the unsatisfied, the walking woman.

There’s all the angry air, the sea,
Between that woman and her hope:
O once I had a house, a fire
Until my man’s proud faring broke
My house and heart. So I’ll desire
Lovers of iron or dead men’s constancy,
Cries the still passionate, the walking woman.   

1945