Once a Week (magazine)/Series 1/Volume 6/Wife and I

by Robert Williams Buchanan

WIFE AND I.

 

I.

We quarrell'd this morning, my wife and I,

We were out of temper, and scarce knew why,
Though the cause was trivial and common;
But to look in our eyes, you'd have sworn that we both
Were a couple of enemies spiteful and wroth,—
Not a wedded man and woman.

II.

Wife, like a tragedy queen in a play,

Tossed her sweet little head in as lofty a way
As so little a woman was able;
She clenched her lips with a sneer and a frown,
While I, being rougher, stamped up and down,
Like a careless groom in a stable.

III.

You'd have thought us the bitterest (seeing us then)

Of little women and little men,
You'd have laughed at our spite and passion;
And would never have dreamed that a storm like this
Would be rainbow'd to tears by that sunlight, a kiss,
Till we talked in the old fond fashion.

IV.

Yet the storm was over in less than an hour,

And was followed soon by a sunny shower,
And that again by embraces;
Yet so little the meaning was understood
That we almost felt ashamed to be good,
And wore a blush on our faces.

V.

Then she, as a woman, much braver became,

And tried to bear the whole weight of the blame,
By her kindness herself reproving;
When, seeing her humble, and knowing her true,
I all at once became humble too,
And very contrite and loving.

VI.

But, seeing I acted a humble part,

She laughed outright with a frolic heart,—
A laugh as careless as Cupid;
And the laughter wrangled along my brain
Till I almost felt in a passion again,
And became quite stubborn and stupid.

VII.

And this was the time for her arms to twine

Around this stubbornest neck of mine,
Like the arms of a maid round a lover;
And, feeling them there, with their warmth, you know,
I laughed quite a different laugh,—and so
The storm (as I called it) was over.

VIII.

So then we could talk with the power to please;

And though the passing of storms like these
Leaves a certain fond facility
Of getting easily angry again,
Yet they free the heart and rebuke the brain,
And teach us a rough humility.

 

IX.

You see, we love one another so well,
That we find more comfort than you can tell,
⁠In jingling our bells and corals;
In the fiercer fights of a world so drear,
We keep our spirits so close and clear,
⁠That we need such trivial quarrels.

 

X.

In the great fierce fights of the world we try
To shield one mother, my wife and I,
⁠Like brave strong man and woman;
But the trivial quarrels o' days and nights
Unshackle our souls for the great fierce fights,
⁠And keep us lowly and human.

 

XI.

Clouds would grow in the quietest mind,
And make it unmeet to mix with its kind,
⁠Were nature less wine as a mother;
And with storms like ours there must flutter out
From the bosom the hoarded-up darkness and doubt—
⁠The excess of our love for each other!

R. Williams Buchanan.