| ALMOST the shell of a woman after the surgeon’s knife! | |
| And almost a year to creep back into strength, | |
| Till the dawn of our wedding decennial | |
| Found me my seeming self again. | |
| We walked the forest together, | 5 |
| By a path of soundless moss and turf. | |
| But I could not look in your eyes, | |
| And you could not look in my eyes, | |
| For such sorrow was ours—the beginning of gray in your hair, | |
| And I but a shell of myself. | 10 |
| And what did we talk of?—sky and water, | |
| Anything, ’most, to hide our thoughts. | |
| And then your gift of wild roses, | |
| Set on the table to grace our dinner. | |
| Poor heart, how bravely you struggled | 15 |
| To imagine and live a remembered rapture! | |
| Then my spirit drooped as the night came on, | |
| And you left me alone in my room for a while, | |
| As you did when I was a bride, poor heart. | |
| And I looked in the mirror and something said: | 20 |
| “One should be all dead when one is half-dead—” | |
| Nor ever mock life, nor ever cheat love.” | |
| And I did it looking there in the mirror— | |
| Dear, have you ever understood? | |
