Click in the field, then press CTRL+C to copy the HTML code
<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>Forsaking All Others Part 5</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">I</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">TRAINED nurses, trained nurses everywhere<br>Trained nurses by night, trained nurses by day -<br>In the corridors, on the stair,<br>Looking for towels, carrying a tray;<br>Saying, 'you mustn't,' 'you must,' 'you may.'<br>Smooth as to hair, stiff as to skirt,<br>Kind in a cool, impersonal way,<br>Angels of mercy, bright-eyed, alert,<br>Hard young angels, sent to avert<br>That older angel of dark despair <br>Stiff starched angels, a trifle curt <br>Trained nurses, trained nurses everywhere.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">II</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">A WHITE figure spoke from the doorway<br>In a tone deliberately bright:<br>'Would you like to see the patient<br>For a moment, and say goodnight?'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Shepherded in like a stranger<br>He stood beside her bed,<br>Gazed at those pale, blank eyelids<br>In that carven ivory head.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Took her hand and heard her<br>Murmur: 'Is that you, Jim?' <br>But he knew she was very tired <br>Tired even of him.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Too much spent with the struggle<br>Of drawing breath to afford<br>A brief smile - utterly weary,<br>And more than utterly bored.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">III</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">NEVER before had Ruth been out of reach:<br>Barriers had been - but only of his making. <br>Now she had passed beyond the power of speech,<br>Quite, quite indifferent that his heart was breaking.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Here in the bedroom that he used to share<br>She lived day after day, averse to living,<br>Indifferent, unforgiving, unaware<br>That he had any need of her forgiving.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">IV</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">AT first Lee wrote to him every day <br>Tactful letters, that let him see<br>She knew very well he would rather be<br>With her - but it wasn't the thing to say.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Tactful letters at first, and then<br>Letters less tactful and more sincere, <br>Ending: 'Why don't you write to me, dear?' <br>Write to me . . . over and over again.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">But he could not answer her piteous call; <br>Not exactly that he forgot<br>Their love, but only that she had not <br>Any reality for him at all.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">She seemed like a pleasant book he had read - <br>Read and enjoyed; but the printed page <br>Cannot compete with the heritage<br>Of Nature. . . the living, and Oh, the dead!</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">At last he sent her a brief reply: <br>'I cannot write - or eat or sleep<br>Just now. I am going through the deep <br>Waters. Forgive me, dear Lee. Good-bye.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">V</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>THEN a night came<br>When in sleep broken<br>He heard his name<br>Suddenly spoken.<br>Into his dream<br>Horrors flocked thickly<br>Was that a scream?<br>'Better come quicklyl'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Cold was his room<br>And his hands shaking;<br>Out of the gloom<br>Dawn was just breaking<br>Dawn cool and green<br>Over the ocean,<br>Never more seen<br>Without emotion<br>Of death - agony <br>Somebody crying <br>All dawns that dawn, when he<br>Knew Ruth was dying.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">VI</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><br>WHAT can you do with a woman's things<br>After a woman is dead? <br>Not the bracelets and rings and strings <br>Of pearls, but the small unvalued things <br>What can I do, Wayne said.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">What can you do with a woman's dresses,<br>After a woman is dead? <br>Hanging limp in the cedar presses, <br>They are part of herself, her pretty dresses <br>What can I do, Wayne said.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">What can you do with a woman's shoes,<br>After a woman is dead? <br>Shoes that perhaps you helped her choose, <br>Poor little empty half-worn shoes<br>What can I do, Wayne said.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">What can you do with her brush and comb,<br>After a woman is dead? <br>What in God's name can you do with her home <br>And her loss and her love and her brush and comb <br>What can I do, Wayne said.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">VII</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">UP a little river<br>Where salmon used to play,<br>Not twenty miles distant<br>A little village lay -<br>Ruth's native village,<br>Where Wayne used to go<br>To see his mother's mother<br>Many years ago.<br>Here in a churchyard<br>With pines along the wall<br>And a wooden church steeple<br>Almost too tall,<br>Here in September,<br>On a bright clear day<br>Among the graves of sailors,<br>They laid Ruth away.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">In this same churchyard,<br>Sitting on the stones, <br>He had first said he loved her<br>In young shaken tones.<br>That had been September,<br>But not this bright light.<br>Between the pine-needles<br>The stars shone white,<br>Such a little maiden,<br>Such a young man<br>'I love you.' - And she answered:<br>'I don't see how you can.'<br>They had been so happy<br>They had not cared at all<br>That the place was a churchyard<br>With pines along the wall.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">VIII</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">WAYNE stood bareheaded on the churchyard sward<br>By the open grave under the open sky:<br>'I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord,<br>He who believeth in Me shall never die.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Beautiful, terrible service! He heard a word<br>Here and there, and then he would drift away<br>To other memories and things not heard<br>Ruth's laugh when she used to laugh, so little and gay.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'When thou with rebukes dost chasten a man from sin..'<br>Was it sin that had parted him from Ruth?<br>Was sin the secret corrosion that entered in<br>Likea moth fretting the garment of love in youth?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Too late, too late! He heard the parson say:<br>'Before I go hence and be no more seen. . .<br>A thousand years in thy sight is but as yesterday. . .<br>Too late, too late! 'As grass in the morning green...'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Was it Ruth he was leaving here in the churchyard plot<br>Could it be Ruth who had gone, not saying good-bye?<br>'What advantageth it me, if the dead rise not?<br>Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">How can a man help eating and drinking?<br>Die to-morrow! To-day, if he had his will.<br>How many years must he spend in thinking, thinking<br>Of the thing which someone has said that all men kill?</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Well, he could bear what he must bear - even the sound<br>Of earth on a coffin falling. What must be must.<br>'We therefore commit her body to the ground,<br>Ashes to ashes, earth to earth, dust to dust.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Prayers! Would they never be done, these killing<br>Rites for the dead! Ah, there was the organ's roll<br>From the little church, and children's.voices shrilling,<br>Piping Ruth's favourite hymn, 'Hark, hark, my soul...'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Hark, hark, my soul! Angelic songs are swelling<br>O'er earth's green fields and ocean's wave-beat shore;<br>How sweet the truth those blessed strains are telling<br>Of that new life where sin shall be no morel</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">Angels of Jesus,<br>Angels of light,<br>Singing to welcome<br>The pilgrims of the night.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">IX</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Dear Lee:<br>I've tried so many times to write, <br>And now I must write, for I sail next week <br>For Italy - Sardinia - I might<br>Go on to Egypt later, and the Greek Islands. <br>I may be several years away.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'I loved you, Lee. I wonder if I can<br>Explain at all what's happened? From your wealth <br>You gave me freely - more than any man<br>Has ever had - beauty, wit, youth and health<br>I loved you passionately; and now my wife<br>Is dead. One might expect a mild distress,<br>A briefly pensive mood. . . Instead, my life<br>Is shattered. . . is dissolved. . . is meaningless. . . <br>She whom of late I thought so little of<br>And saw so little, was, I find, the spring<br>Of all I did and felt - even of my love<br>Of you. . . What an insane, incredible thingl <br>But there it is.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Dear Lee, this is the truth:<br>That any marriage founded on devotion <br>Though that devotion die, as mine for Ruth, <br>Is not a state, but a unique emotion,<br>Potent, unalterable - not romantic<br>Love, though romantic love is where it starts<br>Marriage begins only when those hot, frantic <br>Fires have finished welding human hearts. <br>It is not love, friendship, or partnership, <br>But this emotion-marriage, of a force <br>That when it once has held you in its grip <br>Nothing will free you wholly - not divorce, <br>Or death, for these destroy not it, but you, <br>As I am now destroyed.</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><a href="http://www.citatepedia.com/comments.php?id=342133" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none">'Beware, dear Lee,<br>Of a true marriage, if you are not true <br>Yourself - or you will be destroyed - like me.'</a></div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><a href="http://poems.citatepedia.com/">poem</a> by <strong><a rel="author" href="http://authors.citatepedia.com/by.php?a=Alice+Duer+Miller">Alice Duer Miller</a></strong></div>