Separation

HE     One decade and a half since first we came     With hearts aflame     Into Love's Paradise, as man and mate;     And now we separate.     Soon, all too soon,     Waned the white splendour of our honeymoon.          We saw it fading; but we did not know          How bleak the path would be when once its glow     Was wholly gone.     And yet we two were forced to follow on -          Leagues, leagues apart while ever side by side.         Darker and darker grew the loveless weather,     Darker the way,     Until we could not stay         Longer together.          Now that all anger from our hearts has died,     And love has flown far from its ruined nest,     To find sweet shelter in another breast,          Let us talk calmly of our past mistakes,          And of our faults; if only for the sakes     Of those with whom our futures will be cast.          You shall speak first.     SHE     A woman would speak last -          Tell me my first grave error as a wife.     HE          Inertia.    My young veins were rife     With manhood's ardent blood; and love was fire     Within me.    But you met my strong desire          With lips like frozen rose leaves - chaste, so chaste          That all your splendid beauty seemed but waste     Of love's materials.    Then of that beauty          Which had so pleased my sight     You seemed to take no care; you felt no duty          To keep yourself an object of delight          For lover's-eyes; and appetite     And indolence soon wrought     Their devastating changes.    You were not          The woman I had sworn to love and cherish.     If love is starved, what can love do but perish?     Now will you speak of my first fatal sin          And all that followed, even as I have done?     SHE     I must begin         With the young quarter of our honeymoon.          You are but one         Of countless men who take the priceless boon     Of woman's love and kill it at the start,         Not wantonly but blindly.    Woman's passion     Is such a subtle thing - woof of her heart,     Web of her spirit; and the body's part          Is to play ever but the lesser role          To her white soul.         Seized in brute fashion,     It fades like down on wings of butterflies;     Then dies.          So my love died.          Next, on base Mammon's cross you nailed my pride,          Making me ask for what was mine by right:          Until, in my own sight,          I seemed a helpless slave          To whom the master gave     A grudging dole.    Oh, yes, at times gifts showered     Upon your chattel; but I was not dowered          By generous love.    Hate never framed a curse     Or placed a cruel ban     That so crushed woman, as the law of man          That makes her pensioner upon his purse.     That necessary stuff called gold is such     A cold, rude thing it needs the nicest touch          Of thought and speech when it approaches love,          Or it will prove the certain death thereof.     HE     Your words cut deep; 'tis time we separate.     SHE     Well, each goes wiser to a newer mate.