Page:Emily Dickinson Poems (1890).djvu/72

 XVII.

THE WIFE.

HE rose to his requirement, dropped The playthings of her life To take the honorable work Of woman and of wife.

If aught she missed in her new day Of amplitude, or awe, Or first prospective, or the gold In using wore away,

It lay unmentioned, as the sea Develops pearl and weed, But only to himself is known The fathoms they abide.