So we were wed a year, And he was with me hourly, till at last I could not breathe for him, while he could breathe No where but where I was. Then the bazaar Was coming on where I was to dance, and he Had long postponed a trip to England where Great interests waited for him, and with kisses I pushed him to his duty, and he went Shame stricken for a duty long postponed, Unable to retort against my words When I said "You must go;" for well he knew He should have gone before. And as for going I pleaded the bazaar and hate of travel, And got him off, and freed myself to breathe. His life had been too fast, his years too many To stand the strain that came. There was the worry About the business, and the labor over it. There was the war, and all the fear and turmoil In London for the war. But most of all There was the separation. And his letters! You've read them, wretch. Such letters never were Of aching loneliness and pining love And hope that lives across three thousand miles, And waits the day to travel them, and fear Of something which may bar the way forever: A storm, a wreck, a submarine and no day Without a letter or a cablegram. And look at the endearments--oh you fiend To pick their words to pieces like a botanist Who cuts a flower up for his microscope. And oh myself who let you see these letters. Why did I do it? Rather why is it You master me, even as I mastered him? At last he finished, got his passage back. He had been gone three months. And all these letters Showed how he starved for me, and scarce could wait To take me in his arms again, would choke With fast and heavy feeding. Well, you see The contempt I spoke of which lay long diffused Like dew around my heart, and which at once Drained down itself into my heart's dark cup Grew brighter, bitterer, for this obvious hunger, This thirst which could not wait, the piteous trembling. And all the while it seemed he thought his love Grew sacreder as it grew uncontrolled, And marked by trembling, choking, tears and sighs. This is not love which should be, has no use In this or any world. And as for me I could not stand it longer. And I thought Of what was best to do: if 'twas not best To kill him as the queen bee kills the mate In rapture's own excess.