I did fear Her safety, and her future, did reprove Her conduct, its appearance, rather more In dread of gossip, dread of ways to follow From such free ways begun at seventeen, In innocence, out of a vital heart. But when a bud is opening what stray bees Come to drag pollen over it, and set Life going to the end in the fruit of life! O, my wish was to keep her for some love To ripen in a rich maturity. My care proved useless--or shall I say so? Or anyone say so? since no mind knows What failure here may somewhere prove a gain. There was that man who came into her life With heart unsatisfied, bound to a woman He wedded early. Elenor Murray's love Destroyed this man by human measurements. And he destroyed her, so they say. But yet She poured her love upon him, lit her soul With brighter flames for love of him. At last She knew no thing but love and sacrifice. She wrote me last her life was just one pain, Had always been so from the first, and now She wished to fling her spirit in the war, Give, serve, nor count the cost, win death and God In service in the war--O, loveliest soul I pray and pray to meet you once again! So was her life a ruin, was it waste? She was a prodigal flower that never shut Its petals, even in darkness, let her soul Escape when, where it would. But to myself: I dragged myself to England from LeRoy And plunged in life, philosophies of life, Spinoza and what not, read poetry, Heard music too, Tschaikowsky, Wagner, all Who tried to make sound tell the secret thing That drove me wild in searching love. And lovers I had one after the other, having fallen To that belief the way is by the body. But I was fooled and grew by slow degrees. And then there came a wild man in my life, A vagabond, a madman, genius--well, We both went mad, and I smashed everything, And ran away, threw all the world for him, Only to find myself worn out, half dead At last, as it were out of delirium. And for four years sat by the sea, or made Visits to Paris, where I met the man I married. Then how strange! I gave myself Wholly to bearing children, just to find Some explanation of myself, some work Wholly absorbing, lives to take my love. And here I was instructed, found a step For my poor feet to mount by. Though submerged, Alone too much, my husband not the mate I dreamed of, hearing echoes in my dreams Of London and of Paris, sometimes voices Of lovers lost and vanished; still I've found A peace sometimes, a stay, too, in the innocence And helplessness of children.