EARLIER POEMS
TESS
The free fair life that has never been mine, the glory that might have been,
If I were what you seem to be and what I may not be!
I know I walk upon the earth, but a dreadful wall between
My spirit and your spirit lies, your joy and my misery.
The angels that lie watching us, the little human play,
What deem they of the laughter and the tears that flow apart?
When a word of man is a woman's doom do they turn and wonder and say,
"Ah! Why has God made love so great that love must burst her heart?"
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