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Poems by Katherine Mansfield

Sleeping Together

page 15

Sleeping Together

Sleeping together … how tired you were ! …
How warm our room … how the firelight spread
On walls and ceiling and great white bed !
We spoke in whispers as children do,
And now it was I-and then it was you
Slept a moment, to wake-“My dear,
I'm not at all sleepy,” one of us said. …

Was it a thousand years ago ?
I woke in your arms—you were sound asleep—
And heard the pattering sound of sheep.
Softly I slipped to the floor and crept
To the curtained window, then, while you slept,
I watched the sheep pass by in the snow.

O flock of thoughts with their shepherd Fear
Shivering, desolate, out in the cold,
That entered into my heart to fold !
A thousand years … was it yesterday
When we, two children of far away,
Clinging close in the darkness, lay
Sleeping together ? … How tired you were ! …