Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, SUSAN LOU, by LOUISE REDFIELD PEATTIE


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

SUSAN LOU, by                    
First Line: When the young twilight gently drew her scarf
Last Line: Here in my hands, as thin as evening haze.
Subject(s): Time


When the young twilight gently drew her scarf
Over the gray old village, and I strolled
Home down the twisting street beside the wharf,
I heard behind me in the dusk two old
Quavering voices:
They're all gone, I'm told."
"Yes, all daid now but Susan Lou."
"Let's see,
Sue Lucy must be nigh on eighty-three."
"Or more, I reckon."
"And she lives there still?"
"In the white pillar house up on the hill.
It's all shet up now, only for her room."

"I mind that room when we were girls -- 'twas square --"
"Sixty feet square -- that's good work for a broom!"
"There was a four-post bed with curtains there,
Red tosseled curtains."
"Well, she sleeps there still.
Black George and Mary light the fires and do
What's to be done for only Susan Lou."
"So they're all gone --"
And then into the chill
Of dusk the voices vanished too -- and left
All that once brightly patterned warp and weft,
That Time had woven and had worn, of days
Here in my hands, as thin as evening haze.





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