Listen since you know already
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irst 'twas a piteous thing to see a manSo love a woman, see a living thingSo love another. Why he could not touchMy hand but that his heart went up ten beats.His eyes would grow as bright as flames, his breathCome short when speaking. When he felt my breastCrush soft around him he would reel and walkAway from me, while I stood like a snakePoised for the strike, as quiet and possessedAs a dead breeze. And you can have me wholly,And pet and pat me like a favored child,And let me go my way, while you turn backTo what you left for me. Not so with him:I was all through his blood, had made his fleshMy flesh, his nerves, brain, soul all mine at last,Dreams, thoughts, emotions, hungers all my own.So that he lived two lives, his own and mine,With one poor body, which he gave to me.Save that he could not give what I pushed backInto his hands to use for me and liveMy pities, hatreds, loves and passions with.I loved all this and thrived upon it, stillI did not love him. Then why marry him?Why don't you see? It meant so much to him.And 'twas a little thing for me to do.His loneliness, his hunger, his great passionThat showed in his poor eyes, his broken breath,His chivalry, his gifts, his poignant letters,His failing health, why even woman's crueltyCannot deny such passion. Woman's crueltyTakes other means for finding its expression.And mine found its expression--you have guessedAnd so I tell you all. We were married then.He made a sacrament of our nuptials,Knelt with closed eyes beside the bed, my lipsPressed to his brow and throat. Unveiled my breastAnd looked, then closed his eyes. He did not take meAs man takes his possession, nature's way,In triumph of life, in lightning, no, he cameA suppliant, a worshipper, and whispered:"What angel child may lie upon the breastOf this it's angel mother." Well, you seeThe tears came in my eyes, for pity of him,Who made so much of what I had to give,And could give easily whether 'twas my raptureTo give or to withhold. And in that momentContempt of which I had been scarcely consciousLying diffused like dew around my heartDrained down itself into my heart's dark cupTo one bright drop of vital power, whereHe could not see it, scarcely knew that somethingGradually drugged the potion that he drankIn life with me. So we were wed a year,And he was with me hourly, till at lastI could not breathe for him, while he could breatheNo where but where I was. Then the bazaarWas coming on where I was to dance, and heHad long postponed a trip to England whereGreat interests waited for him, and with kissesI pushed him to his duty, and he wentShame stricken for a duty long postponed,Unable to retort against my wordsWhen I said "You must go;" for well he knewHe should have gone before. And as for goingI pleaded the bazaar and hate of travel,And got him off, and freed myself to breathe. His life had been too fast, his years too manyTo stand the strain that came. There was the worryAbout the business, and the labor over it.There was the war, and all the fear and turmoilIn London for the war. But most of allThere was the separation. And his letters!You've read them, wretch. Such letters never wereOf aching loneliness and pining loveAnd hope that lives across three thousand miles,And waits the day to travel them, and fearOf something which may bar the way forever:A storm, a wreck, a submarine and no dayWithout a letter or a cablegram.And look at the endearments--oh you fiendTo pick their words to pieces like a botanistWho cuts a flower up for his microscope.And oh myself who let you see these letters.Why did I do it? Rather why is itYou master me, even as I mastered him? At last he finished, got his passage back.He had been gone three months. And all these lettersShowed how he starved for me, and scarce could waitTo take me in his arms again, would chokeWith fast and heavy feeding. Well, you seeThe contempt I spoke of which lay long diffusedLike dew around my heart, and which at onceDrained down itself into my heart's dark cupGrew brighter, bitterer, for this obvious hunger,This thirst which could not wait, the piteous trembling.And all the while it seemed he thought his loveGrew sacreder as it grew uncontrolled,And marked by trembling, choking, tears and sighs.This is not love which should be, has no useIn this or any world. And as for meI could not stand it longer. And I thoughtOf what was best to do: if 'twas not bestTo kill him as the queen bee kills the mateIn rapture's own excess. Then he arrived.I went to meet him in the car, pretendedThe feed pipe broke while I was on the way.I was not at the station when he came.I got back to the house and found him gone.He had run through the rooms calling my name,So Mary told me. Then he went aroundFrom place to place, wherever in the villageHe thought to find me. Soon I heard his steps,The key in the door, his winded breath, his call,His running, stumbling up the stairs, while IStood silent as a shadow in our room,My round bright eyes grown brighter for the lightHis life was feeding them. And then he stoodBreathless and trembling in the door-way, stoodTransfixed with ecstacy, then rushed and caught meAnd broke into loud tears. It had to end.One or the other of us had to die.I could not die but by a violence,And he could die by love alone, and loveI gave him to his death. Why tell you detailsAnd ways with which I maddened him, and whippedThe energies of love? You have extractedThe secret in the main, that 'twas from loveHe came to death. His life had been too fast,His years too many for the daily raptureI gave him after three months' separation.And so he died one morning, made me freeOf nothing but his presence in the flesh.His love is on me yet, and its effect.And now you're here to slave me differently--No soul is ever free.
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