THE TWO WIVES

I waited at home all the while they were boating together -

My wife and my near neighbour's wife:

Till there entered a woman I loved more than life,

And we sat and sat on, and beheld the uprising dark weather,

With a sense that some mischief was rife.

Tidings came that the boat had capsized, and that one of the ladies

Was drowned — which of them was unknown:

And I marvelled — my friend's wife?— or was it my own

Who had gone in such wise to the land where the sun as the shade is?

— We learnt it was HIS had so gone.

Then I cried in unrest: “He is free! But no good is releasing

To him as it would be to me!”

“— But it is,” said the woman I loved, quietly.

“How?” I asked her. “— Because he has long loved me too without ceasing,

And it's just the same thing, do n't you see.”