The White Moth.

If a leaf rustled, she would start:          And yet she died, a year ago.      How had so frail a thing the heart          To journey where she trembled so?      And do they turn and turn in fright,          Those little feet, in so much night?      The light above the poet's head          Streamed on the page and on the cloth,      And twice and thrice there buffeted          On the black pane a white-wing'd moth;     'Twas Annie's soul that beat outside          And 'Open, open, open!' cried:     'I could not find the way to God;          There were too many flaming suns      For signposts, and the fearful road          Led over wastes where millions      Of tangled comets hissed and burned--          I was bewilder'd and I turned.     'O, it was easy then! I knew          Your window and no star beside.      Look up, and take me back to you!'          --He rose and thrust the window wide.     'Twas but because his brain was hot          With rhyming; for he heard her not.      But poets polishing a phrase          Show anger over trivial things;      And as she blundered in the blaze          Towards him, on ecstatic wings,      He raised a hand and smote her dead;          Then wrote 'That I had died instead!'