Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.
Holiday CrowdHortense Flexner
T
These covered bodies swathed in cloth and fur.
They do not dream they hold their naked pain
Before this show of life—the checkered stir
Here in the wintry sunlight on the street.
And yet, like martyrs on an old church wall,
They point their wounds—their bleeding hands and feet,
The aching scars, and lips that drank the gall.
For life has hurt them, though they will not cry
“Enough”; shaped flesh to hunger quick or dead,
Withered them, harried, twisted bones awry,
And bleached them white beneath their flying red.
Strange skeletons in merry dominoes,
They do not dream how plain the outline shows.