426 MORE POT-POURRI 



III. 

 Again Love left you. With appealing eyes 



You watched him go, and lips apart to speak. 

 He left you, and once more the sun did rise 



And the sun set, and week trod close on week, 

 And month on month, till you had reached the goal 



Of forty years, and life's full waters grew 

 To bitterness and flooded all your soul, 



Making you loathe old things and pine for new. 

 And you into the wilderness had fled, 



And in your desolation loud did cry, 

 ' Oh for a hand to turn these stones to bread !' 



Then in your ear Love whispered scornfully, 

 'Thou too, poor fool thou, even thou,' he said, 



1 Shalt taste thy little honey ere thou die.' 



As grown-ups have such difficulty in understanding 

 children, so do men and women find it hard to under- 

 stand each other. Many a young husband, often 'one 

 of the best,' deeply wounds and pains his wife quite 

 unintentionally. It is a mistake to be too sensitive ; we 

 must take people as they are. To most men it will 

 always be as Coventry Patmore so prettily says : 



A woman is a foreign land, 



Of which, though there he settled young, 

 A man will ne'er quite understand 



The customs, politics, and tongue. 



Owen Meredith translates the same thought in the 

 reverse way, and with a more personal note, thus : 



Dearest, our love is perfect, as love goes ! 



Your kisses fill my frame and fire my blood ; 

 And nothing fails the sweetness each bestows 



Except the joy of being understood. 



If for one single moment, once alone, 



And in no more than one thing only, this 



Moreover only the most trivial one, 



You could but understand me Ah, the bliss ! 



