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Classic and Contemporary Poetry


TWO LIVES. PART 2: 11 by WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD

First Line: HAD IT NOT BEEN OURS, HAD SHE BEEN MINE. - A FATE
Last Line: WITH QUERULOUS FINGERS? WAS IT NOT ENOUGH?
Subject(s): TOGETHERNESS;

Had it been @3ours,@1 had she been @3mine.@1 -- A fate
Ironic, not alone in scope of plot,
But in each tragic detail, shaped my lot,
With cunning masterstroke from date to date.
The poet-scholar walked that fair estate
With love and all the muses, in his prime
For honorable deeds of prose and rhyme, --
Yet poison in each fruit and herb he ate.
Was't not enough that Madness harbored there,
At the house beside the waters (on the wall
In painted smile, and in the perilous stuff
Of Love's own brain whispering of Otherwhere),
And that Old Age was tottering down the hall,
With querulous fingers? Was it not enough?



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