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| WHEREAS we twain, who still are bound for life, | |
| Who took each other for better and for worse, | |
| Are now plunged deep in hate and bitter strife, | |
| And all our former love is grown a curse; | |
| So that ’twere better, doubtless, we should be | 5 |
| In loneliness, so that we were apart, | |
| Nor in each other’s changed eyes looking, see | |
| The cold reflection of an alien heart: | |
| To this insensate parchment we reveal | |
| Our joint despair, and seal it with our seal. | 10 |
| |
| Forgetting the dear days not long ago, | |
| When we walk’d slow by starlight through the corn: | |
| Forgetting, since our hard fate wills it so, | |
| All but our parted lives and souls forlorn; | |
| Forgetting the sweet fetters strong to bind | 15 |
| Which childish fingers forge, and baby smiles, | |
| Our common pride to watch the growing mind, | |
| Our common joy in childhood’s simple wiles, | |
| The common tears we shed, the kiss we gave, | |
| Standing beside the open little grave; | 20 |
| |
| Forgetting these and more, if to forget | |
| Be possible, as we would fain indeed. | |
| And if the past be not too deeply set | |
| In our two hearts, with roots that, touch’d, will bleed | |
| Yet, could we cheat by any pretext fair | 25 |
| The world, if not ourselves—’twere so far well— | |
| We would not put our bonds from us, and bare | |
| To careless eyes the secrets of our hell; | |
| So this indenture witnesseth that we, | |
| As follows here, do solemnly agree. | 30 |
| |
| We will take each our own, and will abide | |
| Separate from bed and board for all our life; | |
| Whatever chance of weal or woe betide, | |
| Naught shall re-knit the husband and the wife. | |
| Though one grow gradually poor and weak, | 35 |
| The other, lapt in luxury, will not heed; | |
| Though one, in mortal pain, the other seek, | |
| The other may not answer to the need; | |
| We, who thro’ long years did together rest | |
| In wedlock, heart to heart, and breast to breast. | 40 |
| |
| One shall the daughter take, and one the boy,— | |
| Poor boy, who shall not hear his mother’s name, | |
| Nor feel her kiss; poor girl, for whom the joy | |
| Of her sire’s smile is changed for sullen shame: | |
| Brother and sister, who, if they should meet, | 45 |
| With faces strange, amid the careless crowd, | |
| Will feel their hearts beat with no quicker beat, | |
| Nor inward voice of kinship calling loud: | |
| Two widow’d lives, whose fullness may not come; | |
| Two orphan lives, knowing but half of home. | 50 |
| |
| We have not told the tale, nor will, indeed, | |
| Of dissonance, whether cruel wrong or crime, | |
| Or sum of petty injuries which breed | |
| The hate of hell when multiplied by time, | |
| Dishonour, falsehood, jealous fancies, blows, | 55 |
| Which in one moment wedded souls can sunder; | |
| But, since our yoke intolerable grows, | |
| Therefore we set our seals and souls as under: | |
| Witness the powers of Wrong and Hate and Death. | |
| And this Indenture also witnesseth. | 60 |
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