Destroyers and Other Verses/Frau Mathilde's Parrot

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Frau Mathilde's Parrot.
Up five long flights my poet lies,Inch by inch his body dies;No ray of sunshine lights the gloomWithin that solitary room;No loving hands upon him wait,He lies alone from dawn till late;Each groan of pain, each lonely sighIs answered by a parrot's cry.
There, when the winter's fitful lightFaded with on-coming night,His loneliness would find reliefIn taunting my too timid grief;With song and story grave and gayHe'd chase his gloomy ghosts away—With many a bitter jest defyThe world's malignant parrot-cry.
But when to quiet my despairAt some rude word, he smoothed my hair,And stooped to kiss my faded cheek,All the thoughts I dared not speakSurged in a tempestuous tideOf wayward tears—I could not hideThe love I'd striven to deny,And shivered at that parrot's cry.
Paris, 1855.
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