A Failure
by Edith Jones *
.....
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.