The Red Path, a Narrative: And the Wounded Bird

Excerpt from The Red Path, a Narrative: And the Wounded Bird:
The Red Path
I
Lying there, in quite October air,
He waited, tired of so long lying there
For yet unhurrying death; and as he waited
The neighbour waited too, and they both hated
The thought of that slow Shadow moving on belated -
Which of them the more impatient I know not.
But she, being woman, less concealed her thought.
She asked him once, and dared not ask again,
"Shall I send for your wife?" but the old man when
"Your wife!" he heard, shook his weak head and frowned
And cast pale angry orbs the room around,
Lest his wife should be there.
She never came.
He died keeping almost to the end the same
Smouldering fury, with quick sparks of rage
Which the neighbour bore with as the whim of age.
"'Twas strange," she said, "how he turned from his wife and sons!
Never a word of the boys - fine boys - though once
They lived together. How he hated his wife -
A poor thing she - terrified out of her life
If he swore at her. Now lying here he seems