Marguerite Wilkinson

GREAT sun, why are you pitiless?

All day your glance is sharp and keen

Upon the hills that once were green.

Where summer, sere and passionless,

Now lies brown-frocked against the sky

And makes of them her resting place,

For she has drunk the valleys dry.

You never turn away your face,

And I, who love you, cannot bear

Your long, barbaric, searching look

Down through the low cool flights of air—

Your tirelessness I cannot brook.

For all my body aches with light

And you have glutted me with sight,

With flooding color made me blind

To that which is more soft and kind;

Till I have longed for clouds to roll

Between you and my naked soul.

O great beloved, hide away,

That I may miss you for a day.