Click here to give The Atlantic.
Home
Current Issue
Back Issues
Premium Archive
Forum
Site Guide
Feedback
Search

Subscribe
Renew
Gift Subscription
Subscriber Help

Browse >>
  Books & Critics
  Fiction & Poetry
  Foreign Affairs
  Politics & Society
  Pursuits & Retreats

Subscribe to our free
e-mail newsletters




Contents | June 2001

In This Issue (Contributors)

More poetry from The Atlantic Monthly.

More poems by Edith Wharton:
Ogrin the Hermit (1909)
Mould and Vase (1901)
Euryalus (1889)
Wants (1880)
A Failure (1880)
Areopagus (1880)
The Parting Day (1880)
The Atlantic Monthly | April 1880
 
Patience

by Edith Jones *
 
 .....
 
Patience and I have traveled hand in hand
    So many days that I have grown to trace
    The lines of sad, sweet beauty in her face,
And all its veilèd depths to understand.

Not beautiful is she to eyes profane;
    Silent and unrevealed her holy charms;
    But, like a mother's, her serene, strong arms
Uphold my footsteps on the path of pain.

I long to cry,— her soft voice whispers, "Nay!"
    I seek to fly, but she restrains my feet;
    In wisdom stern, yet in compassion sweet,
She guides my helpless wanderings, day by day.

O my Beloved, life's golden visions fade,
    And one by one life's phantom joys depart;
    They leave a sudden darkness in the heart,
And patience fills their empty place instead.



* 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; Patience; Volume 45, No. 270; page 548-549.
Click here to start saving with ING DIRECT!
Home | Current Issue | Back Issues | Forum | Site Guide | Feedback | Subscribe | Search