I visited my former Love As she lay by her husband’s side; I asked her if life pleased her, now She was rid of a poet wrung in brow, And crazed with the ills he eyed; Who used to drag her here and there Wherever his fancies led, And point out pale phantasmal things, And talk of vain vague purposings That she discredited. She was quite civil, and replied, “Old comrade, is that you? Well, on the whole, I like my life.— I know I swore I’d be no wife, But what was I to do? “You see, of all men for my sex A poet is the worst; Women are practical, and they Crave the wherewith to pay their way, And slake their social thirst. “You were a poet—quite the ideal That we all love awhile: But look at this man snoring here— He’s no romantic chanticleer, Yet keeps me in good style. “He makes no quest into my thoughts, But a poet wants to know What one has felt from earliest days, Why one thought not in other ways, And one’s Loves of long ago.” Her words benumbed my fond frail ghost; The nightmares neighed from their stalls The vampires screeched, the harpies flew, And under the dim dawn I withdrew To Death’s inviolate halls. A WEEK ON Monday night I closed my door, And thought you were not as heretofore, And little cared if we met no more. I seemed on Tuesday night to trace Something beyond mere commonplace In your ideas, and heart, and face. On Wednesday I did not opine Your life would ever be one with mine, Though if it were we should well combine. On Thursday noon I liked you well, And fondly felt that we must dwell Not far apart, whatever befell. On Friday it was with a thrill In gazing towards your distant vill I owned you were my dear one still. I saw you wholly to my mind On Saturday—even one who shrined All that was best of womankind. As wing-clipt sea-gull for the sea On Sunday night I longed for thee, Without whom life were waste to me! HAD YOU WEPT HAD you wept; had you but neared me with a frail uncertain ray, Dewy as the face of the dawn, in your large and luminous eye, Then would have come back all the joys the tidings had slain that day, And a new beginning, a fresh fair heaven, have smoothed the things awry. But you were less feebly human, and no passionate need for clinging Possessed your soul to overthrow reserve when I came near; Ay, though you suffer as much as I from storms the hours are bringing Upon your heart and mine, I never see you shed a tear.