Part 2

But what _was_ I, then? Lips and hands only— Since soul cannot reach him without them? Oh, heavy grave of the flesh, Did I never once reach to him through you? I part the branches and look....

(iv)

O my Chair ... But who sits in you? One like me Aflame yet invisible! Only I, with eyes death-anointed, Can see her young hair, and the happy heart riding The dancing sea of her breast! Then she too is waiting— And young as I was? Was she always there? Were her lips between all our kisses? Did her hands know the folds of his hair? Did she hear what I said when I loved him? Was the room never empty? Not once? When I leaned in that chair, which one of us two did he see? Did he feel us both on his bosom? How strange! If I spoke to her now she would hear me, She alone ... Would tell me all, through her weeping, Or rise up and curse me, perhaps— As I might her, were she living!

But since she is dead, I will go— Go home, and leave them together ... I will go back to my dungeon, Go back, and never return; Lest another year, in my chair, I find one sitting, One whom he sees, and the old dog fears not, but springs on ... I will not suffer what _she_ must have suffered, but creep To my bed in the dark, And mind how the girl below called to me, Called up through the mould and the grave-slabs: “_Do not go! Do not go! Do not go!_”

ALTERNATIVE EPITAPHS

“—— _of heart-failure_.”

(i)

Death touched me where your head had lain. What other spot could he have found So tender to receive a wound, So versed in all the arts of pain?

(ii)

Love came, and gave me wind and sun, Love went, and left me light and air. Nor gave he anything more fair Than what I found when he was gone.

HERE END THE TWELVE POEMS BY EDITH WHARTON, PRINTED IN THE RICCARDI PRESS FOUNT AT THE CHISWICK PRESS FOR THE MEDICI SOCIETY, LONDON. MDCCCCXXVI

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TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

● Typos fixed; non-standard spelling and dialect retained. ● Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.