What do you listen for?
I hardly know,
Unless my heart is hearkening for the flow
Of Tarras Water singing by the door
Of Kirdlestead. I've never lived before
So far from running water in my life.
The quiet frightens me.
The quiet, wife?
You never heard the tramp of passing feet
Or rumble of wheels at Kirdlestead. This street
Is quiet enough, but surely Kirdlestead
Was quieter?
I've never lain in bed
Without the voice of water calling clear,
Save when the west wind drowned it, in my ear;
And now I cannot sleep: the darkness lies
Heavily as a dead-weight on my eyes,
As though I lay deep-buried underground
With ears that strained to catch the faintest sound
Of wind in grass or water over stones:
The silence steals like ice into my bones
And numbs my body, freezing blood and breath
Till my heart flutters in the clutch of death.

And you can talk of death, a new-made bride,
Lying the first night by your husband's side?

The husband that my father pledged me to
With his last dying breath! The dead and you
Have held me to my troth: and I'm the wife
Of my dead father's faithful friend for life —
For life that now I know can never be
The song that Tarras Water sang to me.