A WOMENS QUESTION
Before I trust my fate to thee,
Or place my hand in thine,
Before I let thy future give
Color and form to mine,
Before I peril all for thee, question thy soul to-night
for me.
I break all slighter bonds, nor feel
A shadow of regret:
Is there one link with the past,
That holds thy spirit yet:
Or is thy faith as clear and free as that which I can pledge to
thee?
Look deeper still. ����If thou canst feel,
Within thy inmost soul,
That thou hast kept a portion back,
While I have staked the whole,
Let no false pity spare the blow, but in true mercy tell me so.
Is there within thy heart a need
That mine cannot fulfil?
One chord that any other hand
Could better wake or still?
Speak now--lest at some future day my whole life wither and
decay.
Lives there within thy nature hid
The demon-spirit change,
Shedding a passing glory still
On all things new and strange?
It may not be thy fault alone, --but shield my heart against
thy own.
Couldst thou withdraw thy hand one day
And answer to my claim,
That Fate, and that to-day's mistake--
Not thou--had been to blame?
Some soothe their conscience thus; but thou wilt surely
warn and save me now.
Nay, answer not,--I dare not hear,
The words would come too late;
Yet I would spare thee all remorse,
So, comfort thee, my Fate,--
Whatever on my heart may fall--remember, I would risk it
all.
Adelaide Anne Procter (1825-1864)
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