Contents | June 2001
In This Issue (Contributors)
More poetry from The Atlantic Monthly.
More poems by Edith Wharton:
Ogrin the Hermit (1909)
Mould and Vase (1901)
Euryalus (1889)
Wants (1880)
A Failure (1880)
Areopagus (1880)
The Parting Day (1880)
The Atlantic Monthly | April 1880
Patience
by Edith Jones *
.....
So many days that I have grown to trace
The lines of sad, sweet beauty in her face,
And all its veilèd depths to understand.
Not beautiful is she to eyes profane;
Silent and unrevealed her holy charms;
But, like a mother's, her serene, strong arms
Uphold my footsteps on the path of pain.
I long to cry,— her soft voice whispers, "Nay!"
I seek to fly, but she restrains my feet;
In wisdom stern, yet in compassion sweet,
She guides my helpless wanderings, day by day.
O my Beloved, life's golden visions fade,
And one by one life's phantom joys depart;
They leave a sudden darkness in the heart,
And patience fills their empty place instead.
* In 1885, at the age of twenty-three, Edith Jones married and took her husband's surname, becoming Edith Wharton.
Copyright © 2001 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved. The Atlantic Monthly; April 1880; Patience; Volume 45, No. 270; page 548-549.