The Face in the Rain

O form! O face!
Elfin face in the crowd!
Form, face, white throat,
Pale throat wound with a scarf
Poppy red,
Blood-like, red,
Pale throat wound with a poppy scarf
Gleaming out of the crowd.

             Background of grey,
             A rain-wet street;
             Shuffling; shambling
             Beating feet,
             Past the corner where four ways meet.

O face, O throat!
Crimson and white
Splashed on grey:
I have thought of nothing else all day.

             Misted streets,
             A scarf-wound throat,
             Fay-like face
             That seemed to float
             Through the crowd
             Like a wisp of song:
             I have thought of them all day long.

From On a Grey Thread (Will Ransom, 1923) by Elsa Gidlow. This poem is in the public domain.