Read "Neighbors" by Edwin Arlington Robinson online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
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
That was not ours to bear, / And honored her for wearing things
That were not things to wear.
There was a distance in her look
That made us look again;
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
That she was far away.
At last, when we had all forgot
That all is here to change, / A shadow on the commonplace
Was for a moment strange.
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.