O, had he whispered, when his sweetest kiss
Was warm upon my mouth in fancied bliss,
He had kissed another woman even as this,—
It were less bitter! Sometimes I could weep
To be thus cheated, like a child asleep;—
Were not my anguish far too dry and deep.
So I built my house upon another's ground;
Mocked with a heart just caught at the rebound,—
A cankered thing that looked so firm and sound.
And when that heart grew colder,—colder still,
I, ignorant, tried all duties to fulfil,
Blaming my foolish pain, exacting will,
All,—anything but him. It was to be
The full draught others drink up carelessly
Was made this bitter Tantalus-cup for me.
I say again,—he gives me all I claimed,
I and my children never shall be shamed:
He is a just man,—he will live unblamed.
Only—O God, O God, to cry for bread.
And get a stone! Daily to lay my head
Upon a bosom where the old love's dead!
Dead?—Fool! It never lived. It only stirred
Galvanic, like an hour-cold corpse. None heard:
So let me bury it without a word.
He'll keep that other woman from my sight.
I know not if her face be foul or bright;
I only know that it was his delight—
As his was mine; I only know he stands
Pale, at the touch of their long-severed hands,
Then to a flickering smile his lips commands,