| Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869–1935). Collected Poems. 1921. |
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| VII. The Three Taverns |
| 3. Neighbors |
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| AS often as we thought of her, | |
| We thought of a gray life | |
| That made a quaint economist | |
| Of a wolf-haunted wife; | |
| We made the best of all she bore | 5 |
| That was not ours to bear, | |
| And honored her for wearing things | |
| That were not things to wear. | |
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| There was a distance in her look | |
| That made us look again; | 10 |
| And if she smiled, we might believe | |
| That we had looked in vain. | |
| Rarely she came inside our doors, | |
| And had not long to stay; | |
| And when she left, it seemed somehow | 15 |
| That she was far away. | |
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| At last, when we had all forgot | |
| That all is here to change, | |
| A shadow on the commonplace | |
| Was for a moment strange. | 20 |
| Yet there was nothing for surprise, | |
| Nor much that need be told: | |
| Love, with his gift of pain, had given | |
| More than one heart could hold. | |
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