Page:Poems by Isaac Rosenberg (1922).djvu/143

 For you were wed to a girl And I am a woman. My lonely days are not whips to my honour.

Yours, friend.

[Eagerly.] My amulet! My amulet!

[He speaks gravely.] Small comfort is counsel to broken lives; But tolerance is medicinal. In all our textures are loosed Pulses straining against strictness Because an easy issue lies therefrom. (Could they but slink past the hands holding whips To hunt them from the human pale Where is the accident to cover? Spite fears bias.) I am justified at my heart's plea; He is justified also.

For the eyes of vanity are sleepless—are suspicious. Are mad with imaginings Of secret stabs in words, in looks, in gestures.