Page:Collected poems Robinson, Edwin Arlington.djvu/237

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COLLECTED POEMS


And while she felt the tremor of his words,
He told her all there was for him to tell ;
And .then he turned his face to meet her face,
That she might look at him.

She looked; and all her trust was in that look,
And all her faith was in it, and her love;
And when his answer to that look came back,
It flashed back through his tears.

So then she put her arms around his neck,
And kissed him on his forehead and his lips;
And there she clung, fast in his arms again,
Triumphant, with closed eyes.

At last, half whispering, she spoke once more:
"Why was it that you suffered for so long?
Why could you not believe me trust in me?
Was I so strange as that?

tc We suffer when we do not understand;
And you have suffered you that love me now
Because you are a man. . . . There is one thing
No man can understand.

"I would have given everything? gone down
To Tartarus to silence? Was it that?
I would have died? I would have let you live?
And was it very strange?"

THE CORRIDOR

IT may have been the pride in me for aught
I know, or just a patronizing whim;
But call it freak or fancy, or what not,

I cannot hide that hungry face of him.

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