|
|  |  |
 |  | |
| ||
| |||||||
| |||||||
|
| ||||||
| |||||||
| |||||||
 More poetry from The Atlantic Monthly. More poems by Edith Wharton: Ogrin the Hermit (1909) Mould and Vase (1901) Euryalus (1889) Wants (1880) Patience (1880) Areopagus (1880) The Parting Day (1880) |
A Failure
by Edith Jones * ..... (She speaks.) I meant to be so strong and true! The world may smile and question, When? But what I might have been to you I cannot be to other men. Just one in twenty to the rest, And all in all to you alone,— This was my dream; perchance 't is best That this, like other dreams, is flown. For you I should have been so kind, So prompt my spirit to control, To win fresh vigor for my mind, And purer beauties for my soul; Beneath your eye I might have grown To that divine, ideal height, Which, mating wholly with your own, Our equal spirits should unite. To others I am less than naught; To you I might have been so much, Could but your calm, discerning thought Have put my powers to the touch! Your love had made me doubly fair; Your wisdom made me thrice as wise, Lent clearer lustre to my hair, And read new meanings in my eyes. Ah, yes, to you I might have been That happy being, past recall, The slave, the helpmeet, and the queen,— All these in one, and one in all. But that which I had dreamed to do I learned too late was dreamed in vain, For what I might have been to you I cannot be to other men. * In 1885, at the age of twenty-three, Edith Jones married and took her husband's surname, becoming Edith Wharton.
Copyright © 2001 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved. The Atlantic Monthly; April 1880; A Failure; Volume 45, No. 270; page 464-465. |
| ||
|
Home |
Current Issue |
Back Issues |
Forum |
Site Guide |
Feedback |
Subscribe |
Search
| ||||
