The Wife

SHE rose to his requirement, dropped
The playthings of her life
To take the honorable work
Of woman and of wife.

If aught she missed in her new day
Of amplitude, or awe,
Or first prospective, or the gold
In using wore away —
It lay unmentioned, as the sea
Develops pearl and weed,
But only to himself is known
The fathoms they abide.

First print Love poem XVII, 17
Johnson poem 732 | Franklin poem 857

■→IN POLISH

Text compared with the fascicle and prepared for publication by Teresa Pelka, available under any of the following licenses:
■Creative Commons License 4.0, BY-SA 3.0, and License 2.5.

■→Poems, first print by Higginson and Todd, page 64;
Fascicle copy: in using wear away; first print: in using wore away, stanza break at the phrase. First print wore preserved, em dash to join the stanzas.

■Notes for Emily Dickinson’s poetry;
Poems one-by-one print and fascicle comparison,
■Resource for Emily Dickinson’s poetry;
■Google Drive, manuscript fascicles.