It was a trap, I said, and we were caught
Netted like two unwary, fledgling birds,
And we must work and see life drifting on
Out of youth's brilliance to old age and death;
Our bodies must grow bent, and mine must stir
To newer lives in agonies undreamed.
I would rebel, I said,—break all the bonds.
No one had dared to whisper me the truth.
My mother wept upon my wedding day,
But she kept silence, kept the traitor pact.
Had all the old conspired against the young,
Wisdom set lures to snare young ignorance,
And knowledge played the dunce to lead us on?

My husband hushed me to his breast: “I know,”
Was all he said, and “Darling Heart,
It has been just this way since time began.
Are we such cowards that we fear to walk
The selfsame road all other lovers tread?
Shall I be cowardly before my toil?
Are you a coward in the face of pain?
I would bear all and more for just one hour
Within your arms.”
I sobbed: “I, too—I, too—
Comfort me now, and I will take your hand
And fight through life, for our love cannot fail.”


Now, only now, when I am near the end
Of the long fight with life, I can think out
What marriage means. I was so busy then
With all my work I had not time to think.
And there were children, six of them, to rear.
I can see now that as time hurried on
I lost myself within my own hard life.
I was no more; I hardly seemed, those years
A single held-apart identity.
Oh, it is curious how I came at last
To love the ministry of daily needs!

My lover had forgotten his young love;
He only knew the comforts that I gave,
As he fought for his place with other men
And heaped the comforts for our growing brood.
I was the fire that warmed him, everything
That touched him, solace, food unto his soul,
Servant to all his needs, as he to mine,
And we two servants of the growing life
That gathered round us.

It was hard at first;
I mourned a while; I missed the loveliness
Of the brief space of our new love's delight.
Perhaps he missed it too: men are so proud
They never tell their hurts like women folks.
Now at the end, when all the work is done
And he has gone, I somehow plainly see
That marriage meant the losing of one's self
Within another life, and other lives.
I was a wife and I was mother too:
That left no idle hours to fret and mourn.
I gave as God must give—for He is lost
Within His children's lives here on the earth.