So when the train rolled into the station A sickness, a weakness came over me. I had spent myself in expectation. And now that I was about to see you, The thought of the vainness of seeing you, And the thought that you could not help me, Though I had traveled these thousand miles, Made me wish to fly, to hide. So I stepped from the train in a kind of daze, And scarcely felt your kiss. It seemed relaxed, so faint. And your voice was weak. And your eyes were dim and dry. And there in the cab as we drove to the Park I was still in a daze Talking of May baskets And blindman’s buff, And laughing, for one always laughs When the moment is worst. And so it was I did not really see you. But when we began to walk Things about you began to limn themselves: Your shoulders seemed a little bent. There were streaks of snow on your temples. And you were quiet with the terrible quietness Of understanding of life. And the old wit I knew, And the glad defiance of fate, And the light in your eyes, And the musical laugh All were gone. Perhaps the daily grind of Cap and Bells Had sapped you, dear. But when I looked at your hand on your cane And saw how white and slim it was, And how it trembled, I knew You were not the giant man of old, Though you said you were gaining strength again, And I could lean on your arm. Well, then I told you all: How my search for love had fooled me again; And how this beast had wronged and robbed me; And how he stood in his paranoiac rages, And compared himself to Christ. But when I began to speak of the child, What a darling girl she was, You sank in a seat and said: “No more-- I didn’t think I was weak as this-- You mustn’t tell me another thing, Not now, not just now.” Then I saw, what Time had done, And I saw that you could not help me. And the next day and the next day, When I did not see you, And weeks passed by and I scarcely saw you, And I scarcely saw you again, Though I had come a thousand miles To lean on your arm, It grew in my mind that you despised me, Or that you were indifferent to my lot, Or at least that I was a wounded thing You could not bear to see. Till at last, though I knew That my way was clear: there was nothing to do But to fly with my child, And leave him forever, And endure great loneliness forever, if need be, And whatever shame there was, For the sake of my soul’s honor, Which only myself could save, And you could save not at all. Though I knew, I say, that my way was clear, And I needed your help not at all, Still in a kind of madness I began to reproach you for not helping me, And for abandoning me to my fate. As a sick child will cry and blame its mother When it is not healed at once.