Poetry Revisited: The Secret Day by Stella Benson

The Secret Day 

(From Twenty: 1918)

My yesterday has gone, has gone and left me tired,
And now to-morrow comes and beats upon the door;
So I have built To-day, the day that I desired,
Lest joy come not again, lest peace return no more,
Lest comfort come no more.

So I have built To-day, a proud and perfect day,
And I have built the towers of cliffs upon the sands;
The foxgloves and the gorse I planted on my way;
The thyme, the velvet thyme, grew up beneath my hands,
Grew pink beneath my hands.

So I have built To-day, more precious than a dream;
And I have painted peace upon the sky above;
And I have made immense and misty seas, that seem
More kind to me than life, more fair to me than love—
More beautiful than love.

And I have built a house—a house upon the brink
Of high and twisted cliffs; the sea’s low singing fills it;
And there my Secret Friend abides, and there I think
I’ll hide my heart away before to-morrow kills it—
A cold to-morrow kills it.

Yes, I have built To-day, a wall against To-morrow,
So let To-morrow knock—I shall not be afraid,
For none shall give me death, and none shall give me sorrow,
And none shall spoil this darling day that I have made.
No storm shall stir my sea. No night but mine shall shade
This day that I have made.

Stella Benson
(1892–1933)