Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The Other

All alone with my heart to-night
   I sit, and wonder, and sigh.
What is she like, is she dark, or light,
This other woman who has the right
   To love him better than I?

We never have spoken her name, we two;
   There was no need somehow,
But she lives, and loves, and her heart is true;
From the very first this much I knew,
   So why should it hurt me now.

I fancy her tall, and I think her fair,
   Oh! fairer than I by half.
With sweet, calm eyes, and a wealth of hair,
And a heart as perfectly free from care
   As is her silvery laugh.

She loves rich jewels that flash in the light,
   And revels in costly lace,
And first in the morning, and last at night
She kisses one ring on her finger white;
   (How came those tears on my face?)

She has all best things to make life sweet:
   Youth, and beauty, and gold,
And a love that renders it quite complete.
(I wonder why from my head to my feet
   I feel so deathly cold?)

Yet in all the store of her great delight
   (And she has so much, so much)
She cannot be gladder than I, in the bright
Sweet smile he gave her when he said good night--
   And his warm hand’s close, kind touch.

I must put out the light and go to bed;
   I wonder would she care
If she knew, when I knelt with low bowed head,
I prayed for her, but that I said
   His name the last in my prayer?