Classic Poem

Well, you are wedded, and around your life
Twine two great joys; for some one calls you wife,
And child-lips murmur: “Mother!” and you smile
After long years of sorrow and heart-strife.

Smile up into the eyes that meet your own—
Feel the strong, sheltering arm around you thrown
And with the loveliest words of love you while
The hours away, no longer dark and lone.

You feel the clinging of your child; you feel
His arms about your neck; his kisses steal
Away the sigh that trembles to your lips
When faithful Memory doth some face reveal

From out the fading past; but tears or sighs
Are not for your sweet lips—for your bright eyes;
What earthly joy can now your joy eclipse?
For, choosing well, your love could be but wise.

And yet, I fancy that upon your brow
There is a faint, sad shadow resting now;
The bended head droops lower, till at last
Your weeping face in your pale hands you bow

And give yourself to grief! Is it not so?
A voice calls to you from the long ago—
A hand is stretched toward you from the past
And joy is lost in bitterness and woe!

You wonder why the tears your eyes should fill;
You whisper to your breaking heart: “Be still!”
But the heart moans with yearning unsufficed—
Vague yearning, which the world can never fill.

For women love but once; and if denied
That first, sweet love, they live unsatisfied,
Clinging to it as to the cross of Christ—
A cross whereon their hearts are crucified.

And this is life—the life which we must lead:
A life of dire distress and sorest need;
A life which longs, but vainly longs, for rest—
Rest for the hands that toil—the hearts that bleed.

Aye! this is life. Heaven's mercy on us, sweet!
Be it that you and I no more shall meet
Until the grass is green above the breast,
And God's white daisies grow at head and feet!