[]  Charlotte Mew, 1916

«Ne Me Tangito»

«She was a sinner»

«Ne Me Tangito» [1]

«This man... would have known who and what manner

of woman this is: for she is a sinner.» - S. Luke vii.39.

Odd, You should fear the touch

The first that I was ever ready to let go,

I, that have not cared much

For any toy I could not break and throw

5       To the four winds when I had done with it. You need not fear the touch

Blindest of all the things that I have cared for very much

In the whole gay, unbearable, amazing show.

True - for a moment -no, dull heart, you were too small,

Thinking to hide the ugly doubt behind that hurried puzzle little smile:

10     Only the shade, was it, you saw? but still the shade of something vile:

Oddest of all!

So I will tell you this. Last night, in sleep,

Walking through April fields I heard the far-off bleat of sheep

And from the trees about the farm, not very high,

15     A flight of pigeons fluttered up into an early evening makerel sky;

Someone stood by and it was you:

About us both a great wind blew.

My breast was bared

But sheltered by my hair

20     I found you, suddenly, lying there,

Tugging with tiny fingers at my heart, no more afraid:

The weakest thing, the most divine

That ever yet was mine,

Something that I had strangely made,

25     So then it seemed -

The child for which I had not looked or ever cared,

Of whom, before, I have never dreamed.

«She was a sinner» [2]

Love was my flower, and before He came -

«Master, there was a garden where it grew

Rank, with the colour of a crimson flame,

Thy flower too, but knowing not its name

5       Nor yet that it was Thyne, I did not spare

But tore and trampled it and stained my hair,

My hands, my lips, with the red petals; see,

Drenched with the blood of Thy poor murdered flower

I stood, when suddenly the hour

10     Struck for me,

And straight I came wound about Thy Feet

The strands of shame

Twined with those broken buds: till lo, more sweet,

More red, yet still the same,

15     Bright burning blossoms sprang around Thy brow

Beneath the thorns (I saw, I knew not how,

The crown which Thou wast afterward to wear

On that immortal Tree)

And I went out and found my garden very bare,

20     But swept and watered it, then followed Thee.

There was another garden were to seek

Thee, first, I came in those grey hours

Of the Great Down, and knew Thee not till Thou didst speak

My name, that ‘Mary’ like a flash of light

25     Shot from Thy lips. Thou wast ‘the gardener’ too

And then I knew

That evermore our flowers,

Thine, Lord, and mine, shall be burning white.

[]

[2] Ibid., p.54;