Sonnet 5

If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
    That you were gone, not to return again--
  Read from the back-page of a paper, say,
    Held by a neighbor in a subway train,
  How at the corner of this avenue
    And such a street (so are the papers filled)
  A hurrying man--who happened to be you--
    At noon to-day had happened to be killed,
  I should not cry aloud--I could not cry
    Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place--
  I should but watch the station lights rush by
    With a more careful interest on my face,
  Or raise my eyes and read with greater care
  Where to store furs and how to treat the hair.


            VI     Bluebeard

  This door you might not open, and you did;
    So enter now, and see for what slight thing
  You are betrayed. . . .  Here is no treasure hid,
    No cauldron, no clear crystal mirroring
  The sought-for truth, no heads of women slain
    For greed like yours, no writhings of distress,
  But only what you see. . . .  Look yet again--
    An empty room, cobwebbed and comfortless.
  Yet this alone out of my life I kept
    Unto myself, lest any know me quite;
  And you did so profane me when you crept
    Unto the threshold of this room to-night
  That I must never more behold your face.
    This now is yours.  I seek another place.

        Edna St. Vincent Millay