I pace the rooms and wait for John’s return.
My heart beats all too fast, I feel a pain
Around my heart, my hands grow cold, I burn
Through neck and cheeks. And thus I live in vain.
John comes at last and says, “There is no mail,
No letter for you.” And with whirling brain
I turn away in silence, growing pale,
And whisper to myself: to be resigned
To wretchedness perhaps is to prevail
O’er wretchedness and win a peace of mind.
To love you so, to thirst for you, to pay
For outward calm with inner storms confined,
To lie awake by night and spend the day
In restless thoughts, is life too hard to bear.
I see you in my troubled dreams alway,
You face me with a grave and haughty air,
Serene, incensed against me who intrude
An interest which you have no heart to share.
Forgive me then my sorrow’s servitude,
To write to you my suffering will ease,
And fill the aching of my solitude.
I have gone forth to Nature to find peace:
The woods are filled with purple lupine now,
Small yellow asters, phlox, and cramoisies
Of columbine and roses, vine and bough.
The wild grape and the cherry haunt the dunes
With odors sweet as love. To cool my brow
I walk the heights upon these afternoons
And watch the blue waste of the sky’s descent.
And yesterday where golden light festoons
With flickering sorcery the way we went
’Twixt sprays of beech and sassafras I stole
Till once again at the hill’s top half-spent
I saw the shore dunes and the waters roll.
We climbed it once together—it was there
The Bacchic madness came into your soul
To take me in your arms. And now I bear
Your coldness, your reproaches, you who call
My longing and my spiritual despair
A mere neurosis, or hysterical
Outcropping to be conquered. It was wrong
To take me in your arms, and then when all
Was not yours then to tell me to be strong,
And urge your marriage vows now I have thought
The problem of my love through. I belong
To you Monsieur; whatever grief is wrought
Of body or of soul to satisfy
The flame is better, and is far less fraught
With mad regret than it can be to lie
In restless torture. O my friend withdraw
Your friendship from me never lest I die!
Yes, I could live and work if I foresaw
Your friendship mine and letters by your hand
Arriving in this lonely place to thaw
The ice around my heart’s flame. Understand
From those I love but little love I need:
Crumbs from your feast you scarce can countermand,
And crumbs are all I ask, and just the meed
Of friendly interest. I abase my pride.
The strong can suffer silently and bleed
As long as strength lasts, keep the blood inside,
Until one weakens when it spurts and drips.
And Pride turns Nature, careless now to hide
The inner bleeding bubbling at the lips.
I write you this without regret or shame.
My strength has left me in the blue eclipse
Of agony. Monsieur, I take the blame,
If any come, of fanning dangerously
The spark that brightened once and would be flame—
Is that not true? Or do you say to me:
“You are no more my pupil, I retrench
“The memory of things that cease to be,
“And go my way with teaching young girls French,
“As I taught you. Two years have passed since then.
“What is this thought that time has failed to quench?
“You who are laureled in the world of men,
“A genius risen like a morning star,
“Does not that glory fill you?” Yet again
I answer you one’s genius burns afar
In useless splendor if it warm no cheek,
Make bright no eye, lead on no darkling spar—
Genius is love, is freedom, it must speak,
Work out its fate from egocentric life;
It is more swift than other feet to seek
Its ruin with its hope, or take the knife
More willingly to breast than those who sink
In involuted growth. To be your wife
I do not dream, I only wish to drink
The cup with you and break the bread with you,
To feel thereby our lives are one and think
We are one creed and one communion, new
In spirit, born anew, that I may have
An altar for my genius, something true
And near in flesh to triumph for, or brave
The world or evil for. Genius is love.
It cannot bear itself alone to save;
It must another rescue, it must prove
Its growing strength in ministry. Monsieur,
Bruise not my soul by ignorance hereof,
My reverend father thinks my thoughts are pure—
If he should read this! But if you dismiss
This letter with a smile and say her cure
Is the reaction of forbidden bliss,
It is most true, but you would not degrade
My love for you with that analysis,
And that alone. For surely God who made
Our souls and bodies so meant we should rise
Through their desires, and does God pervade
This glowing mass of life, these starry skies
With other power? Now scorn me, if you will.
The unburdened heart has tamed its agonies.