| Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). Poetry: A Magazine of Verse. 1912–22. | | | | The Wife | | By Helen Cowles Le Cron |
| | | I AM young, O shaggy mountains; I am young and you are old; | |
| You are mighty, brooding pines, and I am small; | |
| And your great, gaunt shadows crush me with a horror still and cold, | |
| And your sullen silence holds me like a pall. | |
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| Just today I went for water to a little silver spring | 5 |
| Where the air was sweet and scarlet berries grew; | |
| And my dreams came flocking homeward and my haunting fears took wing | |
| Till the night crawled forth to meet me. Then I knew. | |
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| I am stranger to your silence; I am alien to your might; | |
| I am longing for a little, laughing world | 10 |
| Where the days went dancing past me, for my heart was very light,— | |
| And from many friendly hearths the smoke upcurled. | |
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| Yet he loves you, lonely mountains, and he says he loves me too, | |
| And his cabin nestles trusting at your feet; | |
| But my heart is torn with longing for the gentle land I knew— | 15 |
| And the careless hours when life was very sweet. | |
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| Will you always frown upon me through the weary, weary years | |
| Till my dream-home fades to silence and to night? | |
| I was gay, O brooding mountains, till you taught me pain and tears. | |
| I am alien to your solitude and might. | 20 | | | |
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