| |
I LET other feet go drudging | |
| About the house he built! | |
| A free girl, a jilted girl— | |
| I’m glad he was a jilt. | |
| |
| We quarrelled till it almost | 5 |
| Destroyed my breath of life. | |
| He nagged me and bullied me, | |
| As if I’d been his wife. | |
| |
II We grew cold and bitter | |
| The more we would explain, | 10 |
| And if we held our tongues | |
| The worse it was again. | |
| |
| He flashed a cruel sign, | |
| I flashed a cruel word, | |
| And neither could forget | 15 |
| The blame the other heard. | |
| |
III But his eyes could be tender with love, and his voice—how tender! | |
| Some words he sang are with me the whole day through. | |
| I hang out the linen and burnish the brass and copper, | |
| And they won’t go out of my head, whatever I do. | 20 |
| |
| Strange how they come when I feel alone and forsaken, | |
| How they wake me up when the dawn in my room is hazy, | |
| How they drug me asleep when the night has darkened my pillow! | |
| Ah, a song will sing in your head when your heart is crazy! | |
| |
IV What can I do but sit here and shake | 25 |
| And let the windows rattle mournfully, | |
| While Sunday brings him never and Monday brings him not, | |
| And winter hides the town away from me?— | |
| |
| Dreaming how he drew my soul from my lips, | |
| Seeming just to hear forevermore | 30 |
| What my heart tells the clock, what the clock tells my heart, | |
| Dreaming back the springtime at my door? | |
| |
V Why should I curl my hair for him? | |
| He said the trouble couldn’t be mended, | |
| He said it must be good-by and go; | 35 |
| And he took up his hat, and all was ended. | |
| So all was over. And I’m not dead! | |
| And I’ve shed all the tears I’m going to shed! | |
| |
| And now he’s wanting to come again? | |
| Perhaps he’s sorry, perhaps he misses | 40 |
| The hill-top girl. Well, let him come! | |
| But no more love and no more kisses— | |
| Whatever the future, gay or grim, | |
| Why should I curl my hair for him? | |
| |
VI I shall go out in the sun today. | 45 |
| I don’t know whether to laugh or pray, | |
| For along the waking paths of spring | |
| Bird calls to bird till the branches ring. | |
| |
| Something stirs me—spring’s own will— | |
| To wander to the edge of the hill, | 50 |
| Where I can see as I look down | |
| Patches of green on the gray old town. | |
| |
