The Eyes of My Regret

Angelina Weld Grimké

Always at dusk, the same tearless experience,

The same dragging of feet up the same well-worn path

To the same well-worn rock;

The same crimson or gold dropping away of the sun

The same tints—rose, saffron, violet, lavender, grey

Meeting, mingling, mixing mistily;

Before me the same blue black cedar rising jaggedly to a point;

Over it, the same slow unlidding of twin stars,

Two eyes, unfathomable, soul-searing,

Watching, watching—watching me;

The same two eyes that draw me forth, against my will dusk after dusk;

The same two eyes that keep me sitting late into the night, chin on knees

Keep me there lonely, rigid, tearless, numbly miserable,

       —The eyes of my Regret.