Alberta 1917–1954

To a Divorced Husband

To a Divorced Husband
Date
1922
Distributor
Identification Number
12.1
Genre
Exhibit
Document Type

To a Divorced Husband

To a Divorced Husband

Fifteen years we lived together,
Five we’ve lived apart,
Half a continent divides us---
Live I in your heart?
You’ve a wife and I’ve a husband--
We are far apart!
Each must work out his salvation.
Live I in your heart?
We were young when we were married,
Now so far apart!
And we thought we loved so deeply.
Live I in your heart?
I was gay and proud and heedless,
Dreamed not we could part.
You were cold and stern and ruthless---
Live I in your heart?
In my hurt and angry passion,
Cared not if we part,
I defied you, gibed and jeered you.
Live I in your heart?
She, so seeming sweet and tender;
He with cunning, charming art,
Wove with skill the web between us,
Live I in your heart?
Hard and Cynical you judged me,
Your decree–we part!
Madness swept me in a whirlwind--
Live I in your heart?
but now in the fields where the grain had been
only stubble and stalk;
A barren field, bare, bleak and dry,
A bitter waste and mock.
Her man rode in from the harvest fields,
Tired, haggard and grey.
He tried to smile, as he patted her back,
In his rough yet tender way.
But her hands went out with a mothering cry,
As she drew his head to her breast,
And she said with a smile that was sadder than tears;
“Let’s pretend it was for the best!”

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People Mentioned

Jennifer McDougall

Jennifer McDougall is an MA English and Creative Writing student at the University of Calgary.

Leean Wu

Leean is an Honours English language and literature student at the University of British Columbia and a research assistant for The Winnifred Eaton Archive. She was an undergraduate teaching assistant for the UBC Coordinated Arts Program for two years and a research assistant for the UBC Public Humanities Hub.

Joey Takeda

Joey Takeda is the Technical Director of The Winnifred Eaton Archive and a Developer at Simon Fraser University’s Digital Humanities Innovation Lab (DHIL). He is a graduate of the M.A. program in English at the University of British Columbia where he specialized in Indigenous and diasporic literature, science and technology studies, and the digital humanities.

Organizations Mentioned

Winnifred Eaton Reeve Fonds

Collection of Winnifred Eaton’s papers and unpublished manuscripts, which were transferred to the University of Calgary in 1982. The finding aid for this material is located here: https://searcharchives.ucalgary.ca/winnifred-eaton-reeve-fonds
Written by Joey Takeda

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Full Revision History
January 31, 2024LWPublishedCorrected typo.
January 13, 2024SLPublishedAdded transcription and bibl info. Set to published.
January 05, 2024JTEmptyAdding document from 2023 Calgary Transcribe-a-thon.
July 30, 2020JTEmptyCreated shell from bibl file.