Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, ONE WHO LOVED, by JAMES OPPENHEIM


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

ONE WHO LOVED, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: I have heard of a great love
Last Line: How many of you really love each other?
Subject(s): Love - Nature Of


I HAVE heard of a great love:
Of a woman who lived behind the partition in a lawyer's office:
For four years she was hidden with this married man:
She never went out, day or night:
She sat very still, lest a client might overhear her...
She sewed and read and translated and waited her lover...
His foot had a running sore: tenderly she bathed it.
He was no longer young: no, she was in love with himself...
And when he died, and she was discovered, she held up her head and said to us:
"Had I to do it over again: thus would I do it."

Ah, men and women that I know,
How many of you really love each other?





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