Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Sonnets of Sorrow. 5. You understood the woman side of me

You understood the woman side of me;
My vanities you met with smiling lip;
The fabrics that I wore you first see,
And pass upon them with wise censorship,
You loved things not too sombre or too bright,
But tender toned with colours softly blent;
Yet, when I leaned above you, draped like night
You were unmindful and indifferent.

One sigh of mine, one tear upon my face
Wrenched your dear heart with sympathetic grief.
Yet, when I held you in that last embrace,
Torn with a torture which found no relief,
You lay and smiled with such a knowing air
Of mighty peace as if you did not care.