The Soldier’s Wife

My warrior comes from France to-night
And I, so long disconsolate,
Once more the well-beloved of Fate,
With work-scarred hands go quick to light
The red fire in the polished grate,
To set the chairs and china straight;
Turned young again, with youth’s delight
With happy dreams intoxicate;
I have a home again– a mate.
The centre of a world blown bright,
I wait – and wonder while I wait
My warrior comes from France to-night!

….. And two doors down the street, alone
A woman lies, unreconciled
To grief, whose heart beat like mine own;
Whose love came back, yet came not, grown
A stranger to her and her child.
She only said he had ‘gone wild,
Clean wild’: and with her life turned stone
She watched this man, not hers, and smiled.

….. And yet another tries to break
Pain’s barrier of silence, wears
Her sorrow like a rose to shake
To life his dead, dead laughter; cares
For naught but this, to hear him make
The old, dear jokes; yet cannot wake
For all her eagerness and prayers
The silent boy who stares and stares …..

I wait – and wonder while I wait.
My lamps are lit, my door ajar;
He nears, and yet he seems as far
And further than he was of late.
Like flower to flower and star to star
Were we; and yet how strange things are
To wait – and wonder while I wait!