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Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Rosamond Langbridge

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

The White Moth

Rosamond Langbridge

EVERY night

At my windy, when

I quench the light

Between nine an’ ten,

A White Moth

Soars through the trees,

Light as the froth

Blown off of the seas.

At the same time

It flutters, white

In the scented lime—

Every night.

Seems-like it is,

When I draw the blind,

As if the hair riz

Straight off me mind.

For, how do it come

Just to the minute?—

As if it heard some

Clock strikin’ in it.

Seems like the spell

Of some Mighty One,

Come for to tell

Of some thing I done!

Seems like a sign

I done him some hurt,

When I whipped from his line

Quilty’s white shirt.

Me heart wouldn’t crack—

But the spell would break

If I took it back

As a little mistake.

Still … I’m no debtor

To a bit of light froth:

Maybe ’twould be better

To crush the White Moth!