She, To Him: II
Perhaps, long hence, when I have passed away,
Some other's feature, accent, thought like mine,
Will carry you back to what I used to say,
And bring some memory of your love's decline,
Then you may pause awhile and think, "Poor jade!"
And yield a sigh to me--as ample due,
Not as the title of a debt unpaid
To one who could resign her all to you
And thus reflecting, you will never see
That your thin thought, in two small words conveyed,
Was no such fleeting phantom-thought to me,
But the Whole Life wherein my part was played;
And you amid its fitful masquerade
A Thought--as I in your life seem to be!
Desperate Remedies 1871
(VOL 11, Ch. V, Pg. 251)
"Perhaps, far in time to come, when I am dead and gone, some other's accent, or some other's song, or thought, like an old one of mine, will carry them back to what I used to say, and hurt their hearts a little that they blamed me so soon. And they will pause just for an instant, and give a sigh to me and thing, 'Poor girl,' believing they do great justice to my memory by this. But they will never, never realize that it was my single opportunity of existence, as well as of doing my duty, which they are regarding, they will not feel that what to them is but a though, easily held in those two words of pity, 'Poor girl,' was a whole life to me; as full of hours, minutes and peculiar minutes of hopes and dreads, smiles, whisperings, tears, as theirs; that it was my world, what is to them their world, and they in that life of mind, however much I cared for them, only as the thought I seem to them to be."
