His last letter
by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
Well, you are free;
The longed for, lied for, waited for decree
Is yours to-day.
I made no protest; and you had your say,
And left me with no vestige of repute.
Neglect, abuse, and cruelty you charge
With broken marriage vows. The list is large
But not to be denied. So I was mute.
Now you shall listen to a few plain facts
Before you go out wholly from my life
As some man’s wife.
Read carefully this statement of your acts
Which changed the lustre of my honeymoon
To sombre gloom,
And wrenched the cover from Pandora’s box.
In those first talks
’Twixt bride and groom I showed you my whole heart,
Showed you how deep my love was and how true;
With all a strong man’s feeling I loved YOU:
(God, how I loved you, my one chosen mate.)
But I learned this
(So poorly did you play your little part):
You married marriage, to avoid the fate
Of having ‘Miss’
Carved on your tombstone. Love you did not know,
But you were greedy for the showy things
That money brings.
Such weak affection as you could bestow
Was given the provider, not the lover.
The knowledge hurt. Keen pain like that is dumb;
And masks itself in smiles, lest men discover.
But I was lonely; and the feeling grew
The more I studied you.
Into your shallow heart love could not come,
But yet you loved my love; because it gave
The prowess of a mistress o’er a slave.
You showed your power
In petty tyranny hour after hour,
Day after day, year after lengthening years.
My tasks, my pleasures, my pursuits were not
Held near or dear,
Or made to seem important in your thought.
My friends were not your friends; you goaded me
By foolish and ignoble jealousy,
Till, through suggestion’s laws
I gave you cause.
The beauteous ideal Love had hung
In my soul’s shrine,
And worshipped as a something all divine,
With wanton hand you flung
Into the dust. And then you wondered why
My love should die.
My sins and derelictions cry aloud
To all the world: my head is bowed
Under its merited reproaches. Yours
Is lifted to receive
The sympathy the court’s decree insures.
The world loves to believe
In man’s depravity and woman’s worth;
But I am one of many men on earth
Whose loud resounding fall
Is like the crashing of some well-built wall
Which those who seek can trace
To the slow work of insects at its base.
. . . . . . .
Be not afraid.
The alimony will be promptly paid
| from Poems of Optimism by Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1919) | |
| What they saw | A Dialogue 
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