Hazel Hall’s speaker describes a sudden unease that isn’t about any present threat. She has made peace, she thinks, with loss and exposure—holding her indifference dear. What actually disturbs her is remembering the times she was cowardly in the past, old days that “cried out at irrevocable ways.” She cowers not at what might happen, but at her own former weakness. That shame steals the rest she had found in her present life. She had believed her pride had long buried those wounds, the way snow hides broken twigs, and she even imagined herself like a stable, far-seeing tree on a hill. But one memory startles her back into shame, and she realizes she still feels like a coward. The mood is quiet, wintry, and uneasy—less dramatic than honestly self-accusing. It captures how old self-judgment can suddenly disturb a hard-won calm.
Cowardice — Summary
Discomfort sweeps my quiet as a wind Leaps at trees and leaves them cold and thinned. Not that I fear again the mastery Of winds, for holding my indifference dear I do not feel illusions stripped from me. And yet this is a fear —
A fear of old discarded fears, of days That cried out at irrevocable ways. I cower for my own old cowardice. For hours that beat upon the wind's broad breast With hands as impotent as leaves are; this Robs my new hour of rest.
I thought my pride had covered long ago All the old scars, like broken twigs in snow. I thought to luxuriate in rich decay, As some far-seeing tree upon a hill; But startled into shame for an old day I find that I am but a coward still.