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