Poem by Charlotte Mary Mew

Beside the Bed

      Someone has shut the shining eyes, straightened and folded
        The wandering hands quietly covering the unquiet breast:
      So, smoothed and silenced you lie, like a child, not again
              to be questioned or scolded;
        But, for you, not one of us believes that this is rest.

      Not so to close the windows down can cloud and deaden
        The blue beyond: or to screen the wavering flame subdue
              its breath:
      Why, if I lay my cheek to your cheek, your grey lips, like
              dawn, would quiver and redden,
        Breaking into the old, odd smile at this fraud of death.

      Because all night you have not turned to us or spoken
        It is time for you to wake; your dreams were never very deep:
      I, for one, have seen the thin, bright, twisted threads of them
              dimmed suddenly and broken,
        This is only a most piteous pretence of sleep!

1. The Fête
2. May 1915
3. The Narrow Door
4. Monsieur Qui Passe
5. On the Road to the Sea

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