THE TWO WIVES (SMOKER’S CLUB-STORY)

I waited at home all the while they were boating together— My wife and my near neighbour’s wife: Till there entered a woman I loved more than life, And we sat and sat on, and beheld the uprising dark weather, With a sense that some mischief was rife.

Tidings came that the boat had capsized, and that one of the ladies Was drowned—which of them was unknown: And I marvelled—my friend’s wife?—or was it my own Who had gone in such wise to the land where the sun as the shade is? —We learnt it was his had so gone.

Then I cried in unrest: “He is free! But no good is releasing To him as it would be to me!” “—But it is,” said the woman I loved, quietly. “How?” I asked her. “—Because he has long loved me too without ceasing, And it’s just the same thing, don’t you see.”