Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE WIFE; A TRUE STORY DONE INTO VERSE, by STEPHEN PHILLIPS


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE WIFE; A TRUE STORY DONE INTO VERSE, by                 Poet Analysis     Poet's Biography
First Line: Her husband starved; and gazed up in her face
Last Line: She and the child together ate that fare.
Subject(s): Marriage; Weddings; Husbands; Wives


HER husband starved; and gazed up in her face:
There was no crumb of bread in the bare place.
Grieving she stared into the waning light
With fixed eyes that had in them no sight.
But now at last so deeply, "Ah!" he said,
She might no longer bide about the bed;
But as in panic ran from side to side,
And like a creature all around her spied.
Sudden she stood; and paled in her thought,
And with both hands at her wild bosom caught;
She saw the room of every morsel reft,
And only her own body now is left.
Then like a martyr robing for the flame,
She wound the shawl about her without shame;
Lo in the red shawl sacredly she burned,
Her face already into ashes turned!
And blind out of the brightness of his face
On to the street she came with wandering pace.
But at the door a moment did she quail,
Hearing her little son behind her wail;
Who, waking, stretched his arms out to her wide,
And softly, "Mother, take me with you!" cried;
For he would run beside her, clasping tight
Her hand, and lag at every window bright,
Or near some stall beneath the wild gas-flare,
At the dim fruit in ghostly bloom would stare.
Toward him she turned, and felt her bosom swell
Wildly: he was so young almost she fell;
Yet took him up, and to allay his cries
Smiled at him with her lips, not with her eyes,
Then laid him down; away her hand she snatched,
And now with streaming face the door unlatched,
When lo, the long uproar of feet,
The huge dim fury of the street!
While she into the wild night goes,
That in her eyes a light shower blows.
Faces like moths against her fly,
Like moths by brilliance lured to die;
The clerk with spirit lately dead,
The decent clothes above him spread;
The joyous cruel face of boys;
Those dreadful shadows proffering toys;
The constable with lifted hand
Conducting the orchestral Strand;
A woman secretly distrest,
And staidly weeping, dimly drest;
A girl is vending flowers and fern,
Their very touch her fingers burn;
A blind man passes, that doth sound
With shaking head the hollow ground.
In showering air, the mystic damp,
The dim balm blown from lamp to lamp,
A strange look from a shredded shawl,
A casual voice with thrilling fall!
The officer from passing eye
Hustles the forms that injured lie,
Creatures we marred, compelled upright
To drift beside us in the light.
But now she slowly trembles as she sees
The cruel lover that must give her ease:
Sated, arranged, he paced in moody stride,
With little lilies on his breast that died.
O meekly she beside him went away,
And dutifully as a daughter may.

From that unrealized embrace
Swiftly she broke with eager face;
With food for him that called aloud,
She battled through the hostile crowd;
An army to frustrate her bent,
In sullen numbers 'gainst her sent.
The mystic river floating wan,
The cold soul of the city shone;
The mooned terminus through the dark
With emerald and ruby spark,
The stoker burningly embowered,
With fiery roses on him showered,
Glide; at her feet the mud-gleam blue,
Above a cloudy tinge and rue;
And through the dark the early smell
Of waking meadows on her fell.
With her right arm the door she pushed,
And to the dead the widow rushed.
But at the sight so deeply was she torn,
She babbled to him like one lately born;
And sorrowful dim sounds about him made,
That were not speech: and wildly to him prayed.
She felt how cold is God, how brief our breath,
How vain is any love, how strong is death:
" O fool, O fool! To have so quickly died;
I am unclean for evermore," she cried;
And then with fear, with gathering distrust,
Swiftly between his teeth the morsels thrust.
Then stiller grew; and with a moaning slow
Relented now, and wearied in her woe.
But as the woman, dying in her thought,
Looked upward; at her dress her baby caught,
And she revived, and toward her little son
Ventured, that he into her arms might run.
And like a strange woman all doubtfully
She stretched her arms out shining wistfully,
As though with meek advances she beguiled
Into her sighing bosom her own child.
Then pulled him close to her, and held him there,
And all those tears fell down into his hair.
Softly she said, "O cruel new-born thing!
The years to you a gentleness will bring;
Then think of me as one that not in thought,
But out of yearning into woe was brought."
So as she mourned above him, the old farm
With evening noises in the twilight charm
Returned, and she remembered quiet trees
Just stirring; she can hear the very breeze!
Her prudent mother wisely to her speaks,
Her peaceful hair a little sorrow streaks.
And as a soft and dreadful summer day
Will suddenly through chill December stray,
So the mild beauty of old happiness
Wandered into her mind with strange distress;
Till slowly with the gathering light, lo Life
Came back on her; Desire and Dust and Strife;
The huge and various world with murmur grand.
Time had begun to touch her with soft hand,
And sacred passing hours with all things new,
Divine forgetfulness and falling dew.
Then hunger pained: no thought she had, no care,
She and the child together ate that fare.





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