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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TWO LIVES. PART 2: 4 by WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD

First Line: (STRIVING SO PITEOUSLY!), SHE GREW AS ONE
Last Line: UNCANNILY ALL POWER TO DOUBT OR HATE.)

(Striving so piteously!), she grew as one
Forever apart from all good wives of earth;
'Twas not alone each mood gave impulse birth,
Before a thought could check, in rain or sun;
But thoughts themselves clasped in false unison
How often, quaintly incoordinate;
And memory lapsed both when she walked and sate,
And clock would strike with promised task undone.
Then, too, her vision of life, its lures, its lies,
Its garrulous people stepping to and fro,
Was prismed through her own peculiar eyes
By light which through them from within would flow.
(She lacked -- O terrible beauty of her fate --
Uncannily all power to doubt or hate.)



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