Babette Deutsch

From “Semper Eadem”

HIS life was strangely hedged about

By three, though he seemed not to know it:

One whom he loved, who shut him out;

One hid her passion in her doubt;

One was too fond and wise to show it.

The first blew on desire’s dark flame

Until he tossed with every flicker

In agonies of sad self-blame,

That left him tired, but not yet tame

Enough to cease love’s tireless bicker.

The second tried in vain to bind him,

Uncertain of what stirred in each.

Walking through labyrinths to find him,

She saw him shorn, but could not blind him;

And silence was her wittiest speech.

The third had known him since she bore him;

And suffered, though she may have smiled,

To know that barren wishes tore him,

When one was ready to adore him

As if he were not still her child.

Too wise to hate the one he wanted,

Too fond to pity her he scorned,

Her hours, like his own, were haunted

By devils that might well have daunted

A monster likewise hoofed and horned.

The first, meeting his mother, knew her

A woman very like her own.

The second wondered how to woo her,

While ever seeking to eschew her,

Fearful of what she must have known.

And so their days were all one tangle

Of this, one dropped, and that, one dared.

While he, from his peculiar angle,

Half-wished that loneliness might strangle

What they so curiously shared.