"That shall be to-morrow, Not to-night: I must bury sorrow Out of sight." The "sorrow" is for him, not for herself: he has fallen below his highest in the tyranny of to-night. Then be sure that she, so loving and so seeing, shall lift him up to-morrow! _This_ tear shall be dried. II JAMES LEE'S WIFE In this song-cycle of nine poems we are shown the death of a woman's heart. James Lee's wife sums up in herself, as it were, all those "troubles of love" which we have considered in the earlier monologues. The man has failed her--as De Lorge failed his lady, as the poet the "poor, pretty thoughtful thing"; love has left her--as it left the woman of _The Laboratory_ and the girl of _In a Year_; she and her husband are at variance in the great things of life--like the couple, in _A Woman's last Word_. But even the complete surrender of individuality resolved upon by the wife in that poem would not now avail, if indeed it ever would have availed, the wife of James Lee. All is over, and, as she gradually realises, over with such finality that there is only one thing she can do, and that is to leave him--"set him free." We learn the mournful story from the wife's lips only; the husband never speaks, and is but once present. All we actually see are the moods of nine separate days--spread over what precise period of time we are not clearly shown, but it was certainly a year. These nine revealings show us every stage from the first faint pang of apprehension to the accepted woe; then the battle with _that_--the hope that love may yet prevail; the clutch at some high stoicism drawn from the laws of nature, or from "old earth's" genial wisdom; next, the less exalted plan to be "of use," since there is nothing else for her to be--and finally the flight, the whole renunciation. Echoes hover from all sad women's stories elsewhere studied: the Tear reigns supreme, the Victim is _in excelsis_--for hardly did Pompilia suffer such excess of misery, since she at least could die, remembering Caponsacchi. James Lee's wife will live, remembering James Lee. Into the chosen commonplace of the man's name[251:1] we may read a symbolism. "This is every-day's news," the poet seems to say; "you may watch the drama for yourselves whenever you so please." And only indeed in the depth of the woman's passion is there aught unusual. _That_, as uttered in the final poem, seems more than normal--since she knows her husband for (as she so strangely says of him) "mere ignoble earth"; yet still can claim that he "set down to her" "Love that was life, life that was love, A tenure of breath at your lips' decree, A passion to stand as your thoughts approve, A rapture to fall where your foot might be."