HER SECRET
My secret and I stand here in front of the glass.
We are bedecking ourselves for an evening of gayety.
We look down and make our lips smile—
We look up and make ourselves laugh,
And then we turn and look into the glass again
To see if others will believe that our eyes are smiling too.
How long will it last, the evening?
It will be three hours at least, maybe four.
There will be music and bright dresses and clinking and chattering
And everybody will laugh; there will be a great deal of laughter.
Everybody will go about with smiling lips,
But if you stop and look
You will see that everybody’s eyes are hungry.
None of them shall know my secret
No one knows that—
Not any one in all the world.
There was one other knew
But he is dead.
I heard that he was dead just now—
A little while ago—
Just a few minutes ago by the clock.
I was putting on my beautiful dress
When I heard a list read out from the paper, many names,
A long, long list.
I went on fastening my embroidered slippers
While they read and read—
It came while I was buttoning my gloves, my long gloves;
There are a number of buttons.
No one shall guess my secret.
There is a woman somewhere,
I do not know where she is;
But all her friends are hastening,
Coming from all about
To surround her with their melancholy faces.
Soon they will get for her a black dress and a long black veil.
They will lead her faltering to a church,
Her two wondering children held to her side, one by each hand.
She will be very important.
They will say beautiful things about him—
Beautiful sad things—
And all the time, hid by her long black veil,
Her eyes will be smiling—smiling.
And what have I of him?
What shall I take with me to the party?
Only the memory of that last dawn
When I gave him all and bade him go.