University of Virginia Library

But things are no more as they were with us;
Somehow the light has gone out from our life,
And we, together living, live apart
In joyless solitude. I blame you not,
Except that your too tender cherishing
Fostered my self-love, making much of me,
Petting myself, and pitying myself
Too much already. Mine alone the blame
Of that dim separateness. For I was not
The wife you needed, though I tried to be,
And never woman's love was more than mine.
I have not shared the burden of your thoughts,
I have not understood you, nor forgot
Myself in your high purpose; my small lamp
That feebly glimmered, failed, of course, to light
The two large chambers of your life. Perhaps,
I never should have been a wedded wife;
Perhaps it had been better had I died,
When God took baby from us. I have been
Foolish and fretful, selfish, useless; only
I loved so absolute—that is my excuse.
Had I but loved my God as well! But there,
The more I strove that you should cleave to Him,
The more I seemed to lose my hold of Him,
And drifted as you drifted, helping not
Your soul, and hurting mine own faith, as day
Slipt after day, with ever dimmer sense
Of things unseen in me, and harder thoughts
In you, until I felt my darkening way
Was darkening yours, and dropping into death,
As we more alien grew in all our thoughts,
In feeling more estranged, in ways more sundered,
And God appeared the farther from us both.
That is the bitter end of all my striving—
Harm to my own soul, cruel hurt to thine!
And yet I meant so well; only I tried
A work beyond my power; except the Lord,
Do build the house, the builder builds in vain.