Magdalen

Amy Levy

1884

All things I can endure, save one.

The bare, blank room where is no sun;

The parcelled hours; the pallet hard;

The dreary faces here within;

The outer women’s cold regard;

The Pastor’s iterated “sin”;—

These things could I endure, and count

No overstrain’d, unjust amount;

No undue payment for such bliss—

Yea, all things bear, save only this:

That you, who knew what thing would be,

Have wrought this evil unto me.

It is so strange to think on still—

That you, that you should do me ill!

Not as one ignorant or blind,

But seeing clearly in your mind

How this must be which now has been,

Nothing aghast at what was seen.

Now that the tale is told and done,

It is so strange to think upon.

You were so tender with me, too!

One summer’s night a cold blast blew,

Closer about my throat you drew

That half-slipt shawl of dusky blue.

And once my hand, on a summer’s morn,

I stretched to pluck a rose; a thorn

Struck through the flesh and made it bleed

(A little drop of blood indeed!)

Pale grew your cheek you stoopt and bound

Your handkerchief about the wound;

Your voice came with a broken sound;

With the deep breath your breast was riven;

I wonder, did God laugh in Heaven?

How strange, that you should work my woe!

How strange! I wonder, do you know

How gladly, gladly I had died

(And life was very sweet that tide)

To save you from the least, light ill?

How gladly I had borne your pain.

With one great pulse we seem’d to thrill,—

Nay, but we thrill’d with pulses twain.

Even if one had told me this,

“A poison lurks within your kiss,

Gall that shall turn to night his day:”

Thereon I straight had turned away—

Ay, tho’ my heart had crack’d with pain—

And never kiss’d your lips again.

At night, or when the daylight nears,

I hear the other women weep;

My own heart’s anguish lies too deep

For the soft rain and pain of tears.

I think my heart has turn’d to stone,

A dull, dead weight that hurts my breast;

Here, on my pallet-bed alone,

I keep apart from all the rest.

Wide-eyed I lie upon my bed,

I often cannot sleep all night;

The future and the past are dead,

There is no thought can bring delight.

All night I lie and think and think;

If my heart were not made of stone,

But flesh and blood, it needs must shrink

Before such thoughts. Was ever known

A woman with a heart of stone?

The doctor says that I shall die.

It may be so, yet what care I?

Endless reposing from the strife?

Death do I trust no more than life.

For one thing is like one arrayed,

And there is neither false nor true;

But in a hideous masquerade

All things dance on, the ages through.

And good is evil, evil good;

Nothing is known or understood

Save only Pain. I have no faith

In God, or Devil, Life or Death.

The doctor says that I shall die.

You, that I knew in days gone by,

I fain would see your face once more,

Con well its features o’er and o’er;

And touch your hand and feel your kiss,

Look in your eyes and tell you this:

That all is done, that I am free;

That you, through all eternity,

Have neither part nor lot in me.

Credits

Amy Levy, “Magdalen,” A Minor Poet and Other Verse (London: London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1884), pp. 65–68.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 7.

You may also like

Engage with this Source

Details

You may also like