Page:The Collected Poems of Dora Sigerson Shorter.djvu/193



so goodbye, my love, my dear, and so goodbye, E'en thus from my sad heart go hence, depart; I cast thee out, renounce, and hold no more; I wreck the cup of joy thou heldest for drinking To my lips, thinking we'd quaff—be as before; Yet at my laughter if thou nearest sigh, And ask no question “Why?” Believing only that my pleasure lies To find approval in thy pleased eyes.

Before our time, my dear, my dear, Fate so had planned Our little race to run beneath the sun. That we should meet and love and dream, then separate. Perchance, she thought, though, there would be no parting, No salt tears smarting; she deemed to mate My most imperfect self to thine, and gain A better harvesting of pain: I weep, but null is Fate's decree— Such tears fall not so bitterly.

I saw a woman once undo and then peruse Old letters with hard eyes; through such disguise I pierced and knew her weeping. “And such he was,” she said, “whose is the failing That love is paling? which is the soul that's sleeping?” His step; and quick the letters put in hiding: They meet with cold eyes chiding. If I were such as she. Oh, death were well for me!