Life

A rind of light hangs low On the rim of the world; A sound of feet disturbs The quiet of the cell Where a rope and a beam looms high At the end of the yard.

But in the dusk Of that walled yard waits a woman; And as the thing from its cell, Still guarded and chained and bound, Crosses that little space, Silent, for ten brief steps, A woman hangs on his neck.

And that walk from a cell to a sleep Is known as Life, And those ten dark steps Of tangled rapture and tears Men still call Love.