A WIFE COMES BACK
79
When she was the charm of the idle town,
And he the pick of the club-fire set. . . .
His eyes grew wet,
And he stretched his arms: "Stay—rest!—"
He cried. “Abide with me so, my own!"
But his arms closed in on his hard bare breast;
She had vanished with all he had looked upon
Of her beauty: gone.
He clothed, and drew downstairs,
But she was not in the house, he found;
And he passed out under the leafy pairs
Of the avenue elms, and searched around
To the park-pale bound.
He mounted, and rode till night
To the city to which she had long withdrawn,
The vision he bore all day in his sight
Being her young self as pondered on
In the dim of dawn.
"—The lady here long ago—
Is she now here?—young—or such age as she is?"
