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Edgar Lee Masters - Pauline Barrett
Work rating: Low

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,
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.
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
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:
"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?
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