EDGAR'S WIFE by PHOEBE CARY

I KNOW that Edgar's kind and good,
And I know my home is fine,
If I only could live in it, mother,
And only could make it mine.

You need not look at me and smile,
In such a strange, sad way;
I am not out of my head at all,
And I know just what I say.

I know that Edgar freely gives
Whate'er he thinks will please;
But it's what we love that brings us good,
And my heart is not in these.

Oh, I wish I could stand where the maples
Drop their shadows, cool and dim;
Or lie in the sweet red clover,
Where I walked, but not with him!

Nay, you need not mind me, mother,
I love him -- or at the worst,
I try to shut the past from my heart;
But you know he was not the first!

And I strive to make him feel my life
Is his, and here, as I ought;
But he never can come into the world
That I live in, in my thought.

For whether I wake, or whether I sleep,
It is always just the same;
I am far away to the time that was,
Or the time that never came.

Sometimes I walk in the paradise,
That, alas! was not to be;
Sometimes I sit the whole night long
A child on my father's knee;

And when my sweet sad fancies run
Unheeded as they list,
They go and search about to find
The things my life has missed.

Aye! this love is a tyrant always,
And whether for evil or good,
Neither comes nor goes for our bidding, --
But I've done the best I could.

And Edgar's a worthy man I know,
And I know my house is fine;
But I never shall live in it, mother,
And I never shall make it mine!

Classic and Contemporary Poetry

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