SILVER  BELLS  AND  COCKLE  SHELLS 

He talks to me kindly: and there is my mother, 
soothing and smiling and nodding a little. 

He takes my hand: and there is my kitten, 
so soft and warm and happily purring. 

He lays his head in my lap: and a child, 
stirring in my womb, sweats with me sweetness. 

He unlaces my bodice to kiss my bosom: 
and blood and milk are one within me. 

He takes my mouth: and there is a wild man, 
staring of eye and smirched with sin. 

He floats me down: and in the blackness 
my screen is broken from roof to floor . . . 

O listen, my lover! My garden grows 
with seven little maids in lonely rows, 

all hung beneath with silver bells 
that ring to charm the cockle-shells.

                     (1945)