Two Women, 1862; a Poem

by Constance Fenimore Woolson

Fool and blind! your God above
Knows that I lie not when I say that he
You dwarf with your weak names is mine, mine, mine!
He worships me—dost hear? He worships me,
Me only! What art thou, a feeble child,
That thou shouldst speak of loving? Haste, aside,
Lest we should drown you in the torrent wild
Of our strong meeting loves, that may not bide
Nor know your dying, even; feeble weed
Tossed on the shore—[The maiden faints.
Why could I not divine
The truth at first? [Fans her.
Fierce love, why shouldst thou kill
This little one? The child hath done no ill,
Poor wounded, broken blossom. I should pour
My gentlest pity—

The Maiden (recovering).

Madam, thanks; no more
Do I require your aid.

The Lady (aside).

How calm she seems,
How cold her far-off eyes! Poor little heart.
The pity of it! all its happy dreams,
With a whole life’s idolatry to part
In one short moment.
(Speaks.) Child, let us be friends;
Not ours the fault, it is the work of Fate.
And now, before your hapless journey ends,
Say, in sweet charity, you do not hate
Me for my love. Trust me, I’ll tend him well;
As mine own heart’s blood, will I care for him
Till strong again. Then shall he come and tell
The whole to you—the cup from dregs to brim—
How, with undoubting faith
In the young fancy that he thought was love
For you, he came a-down the glittering path
Of Washington society; above
The throng I saw his noble Saxon head,
Sunny with curls, towering among the rest
In calm security—scorn that is bred
Of virtue, and that largeness which your West
With its wide sweep of fields gives to her sons—
A certain careless largeness in the look,
As though a thousand prairie-miles it took
Within its easy range.
Ah! blindly runs
Our fate. We met, we two so far apart
In every thought, in life, in soul, in heart—
Our very beings clashed. He, fair, severe;
I, dark and free; his days a routine clear,
Lighted by conscience; I, in waking dream
Of colors, music, warmth, the scents of flowers,
The sweep of velvet, and the diamond’s gleam,
A cloud of romance heavy on the air,
The boudoir curtained from the light of day,
Where all the highest came to call me fair,
And whispered vows I laughed in scorn away.
Was it my fault that Nature chose to give
The splendid beauty of this hair, these eyes,
This creamy skin? And if the golden prize
Of fortune came to me, should I not live
In the rich luxury my being craved?
I give my word, I no more thought of time—
Whether ’twas squandered, trifled with, or saved,
Than the red rose in all her damask prime.
Each day I filled with joys full to the brim—
The rarest fruits and wines, the costliest lace,
The ecstasy of music, every whim
For some new folly gratified, the grace
Of statues idealized in niches, touch
Of softest fabrics. Ah! the world holds much
For those who love her; and I never heard
In all my happy glowing life one word
Against her, till—he came!
We met, we loved,
Like flash of lightning from a cloudless sky,
So sudden, strange, the white intensity—
Intensity resistless! Swift there moved
Within his heart a force unknown before,
That swept his being from that early faith
Across a sea, and cast it on the shore
Prone at my feet.
He minded not if death
Came, so he could but gaze upon my face.

—But, bending where he lay (the youthful grace
Of his strong manhood, in humility
Prone, by love’s lightnings), so I bended me
Down to his lips, and gave him—all!
Sweet girl,
Forgive me for the guiltless robbery,
Forgive him, swept by fateful Destiny!
He spoke of one, the child-love of his youth;
I told of my child-marriage. But, in truth,
No barrier, had it been a thousand-fold
Stronger than boyish promise, e’er could hold
Natures like ours!
You see it, do you not?
You understand it all.
—I had forgot,
But this the half-way town; the train runs slow,
No better place than this. But, ere you go,
Give me one silent hand-clasp, little pearl.
I ask you not to speak, for words would seem
Too hard, too hard. Yet, some time, when the dream
Of girlhood has dissolved before the heat
Of real love, you will forgive me, sweet.

The Maiden.

I fail to comprehend you. Go? Go where?

The Lady.

Back to your home; here waits the north-bound train;
’Twill bear you safely. To go on were pain
Most needless—cruel.