The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith ... Revised by the Author: Coll. ed. |
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 | The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith |  |
March, 18—
Winifred Urquhart and I, when we were tall school-girls,
Chatting of wooings and weddings while twisting our hair up in curls,
Or whispering some hush-secret, which was not secret a bit,
Only we were confidential, and made a secret of it—
Winnie and I made a paction, silly things that we were!
That she would be sure to tell me, and I must be sure to tell her,
Whoever, first of us, wedded, all the bitter and sweet
Of the life of marriage that makes the life of a woman complete;
The hope, the fear, and the bliss too, we were to set down all,
And none of our Gardens of Eden be hid by a hedge or a wall.
Chatting of wooings and weddings while twisting our hair up in curls,
Or whispering some hush-secret, which was not secret a bit,
Only we were confidential, and made a secret of it—
Winnie and I made a paction, silly things that we were!
That she would be sure to tell me, and I must be sure to tell her,
Whoever, first of us, wedded, all the bitter and sweet
Of the life of marriage that makes the life of a woman complete;
The hope, the fear, and the bliss too, we were to set down all,
And none of our Gardens of Eden be hid by a hedge or a wall.
So now she writes me a letter, all underlined, to say
She trusts that I do not forget the promise I made that day;
Hints that, perhaps, I might keep a Diary locked with a key,
And sacred To Early Friendship, which no other eye should see;
And hopes that I will not act like commonplace wives, who drop
Their friends and their French and pianos, and put to the Past a full stop,
So to begin a new paragraph all about beeves and muttons,
Darning, and troubles with servants, and gentlemen's shirts and buttons.
Why does marriage, she adds, so often a woman degrade?
Why is the wife so silly, who was ever so bright as a maid?
Why should a husband like to fallow her intellect,
And starve it on housekeeping cares that lower her self-respect?
But she is sure that mine is all that he ought to be,
Worthy of love and devotion, almost worthy of me.
Yet oh, the young love of girls! it is purer, truer, and better!
And so she concludes with a prayer for a long and an early letter.
She trusts that I do not forget the promise I made that day;
Hints that, perhaps, I might keep a Diary locked with a key,
And sacred To Early Friendship, which no other eye should see;
And hopes that I will not act like commonplace wives, who drop
Their friends and their French and pianos, and put to the Past a full stop,
So to begin a new paragraph all about beeves and muttons,
Darning, and troubles with servants, and gentlemen's shirts and buttons.
Why does marriage, she adds, so often a woman degrade?
Why is the wife so silly, who was ever so bright as a maid?
Why should a husband like to fallow her intellect,
And starve it on housekeeping cares that lower her self-respect?
But she is sure that mine is all that he ought to be,
Worthy of love and devotion, almost worthy of me.
Yet oh, the young love of girls! it is purer, truer, and better!
And so she concludes with a prayer for a long and an early letter.
This has set me a-thinking that, maybe, I ought to write
The things that my heart is full of, as the noon of heaven with light,
The thoughts that I had not before, which gave me a larger life,
And the bliss that never I knew till he called me his own little wife.
Not that I mean to keep a silly promise like that—
Winnie is clever and scheming; I know what she wants to be at.
Give her a word, good or bad, and she'd spin such a web from the hint,
And colour a meaningless phrase with so suspicious a tint,
That folk would begin to whisper, sure there was something amiss:
And then she would write me, bewailing the world and its wickedness.
Dearly she loves a mystery, dearly she loves to be thought
To know what she ought not to know, and to wit what none else ever wot:
For Winnie is clever and scheming, even when she looks like a fool;
She was not liked by the girls, and she was not happy at school,
But I came to be fond of her, rather, by having to take her part,
When others were hard upon her, and said that she had not a heart;
Which is not true, I am sure, nor yet the tales that they told
Of wicked books she had read before she was twelve years old.
I have heard that, since she came home, she cultivates science, and writes,
And lectures over the country, most of the winter nights,
Having her hair cut short, and her finger-tips black with ink:—
But Winnie could never forget what is due to a lady, I think.
I am going to write in my book, but not for her eyes to see:
Ought I to hide it from him who keeps not a thought from me?
Oh, there is something in marriage, like the veil of the temple of old,
That screened the Holy of Holies with blue and purple and gold;
Something that makes a chamber where none but the one may come,
A sacredness too, and a silence, where joy that is deepest is dumb.
And it is in that secret chamber where chiefly my days are passed,
With a sense of something holy, and a shadow of something vast,
Till he comes, who alone is free to come and to go as he will,
Till he comes, and the brooding silence begins to pulse and thrill.
Oh come, for my heart is weary, waiting, my love, for thee!
I will lock my bliss from the world, but my love shall have ever the key.
The things that my heart is full of, as the noon of heaven with light,
The thoughts that I had not before, which gave me a larger life,
And the bliss that never I knew till he called me his own little wife.
Not that I mean to keep a silly promise like that—
Winnie is clever and scheming; I know what she wants to be at.
Give her a word, good or bad, and she'd spin such a web from the hint,
And colour a meaningless phrase with so suspicious a tint,
That folk would begin to whisper, sure there was something amiss:
And then she would write me, bewailing the world and its wickedness.
Dearly she loves a mystery, dearly she loves to be thought
To know what she ought not to know, and to wit what none else ever wot:
For Winnie is clever and scheming, even when she looks like a fool;
She was not liked by the girls, and she was not happy at school,
160
When others were hard upon her, and said that she had not a heart;
Which is not true, I am sure, nor yet the tales that they told
Of wicked books she had read before she was twelve years old.
I have heard that, since she came home, she cultivates science, and writes,
And lectures over the country, most of the winter nights,
Having her hair cut short, and her finger-tips black with ink:—
But Winnie could never forget what is due to a lady, I think.
I am going to write in my book, but not for her eyes to see:
Ought I to hide it from him who keeps not a thought from me?
Oh, there is something in marriage, like the veil of the temple of old,
That screened the Holy of Holies with blue and purple and gold;
Something that makes a chamber where none but the one may come,
A sacredness too, and a silence, where joy that is deepest is dumb.
And it is in that secret chamber where chiefly my days are passed,
With a sense of something holy, and a shadow of something vast,
Till he comes, who alone is free to come and to go as he will,
Till he comes, and the brooding silence begins to pulse and thrill.
Oh come, for my heart is weary, waiting, my love, for thee!
I will lock my bliss from the world, but my love shall have ever the key.
| The Poetical Works of Walter C. Smith | |