Babette Deutsch

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Quandary

There is no shelter anywhere 
For her whose wonder, like a hare, 
Bursts through the briars of despair, 
And bleeds and leaps away. 
There is no cave where she may keep. 
The stream she drinks of is too deep 
For her to ford. Her little sleep 
The dreadful stars betray. 

The panther heart within her breast 
Will never drum her pain to rest, 
Who so much fears to be possessed 
By tyrannous circumstance. 
Though she but stands, she seems to flee, 
She trembles so to be as free 
As if she'd shed mortality, 
And smiled at her own trance. 

How to sustain the miracle 
Of being, that like a muted bell, 
Or like some ocean-breathing shell, 
Quivers, intense and still? 
How close to her the golden room 
That the world builds of its own gloom? 
Her patient, furtive, fertile doom 
Is there no way to kill?