Explore "Mrs. Charles Bliss" by Edgar Lee Masters on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Reverend Wiley advised me not to divorce him / For the sake of the children, / And Judge Somers advised him the same.
So we stuck to the end of the path.
But two of the children thought he was right, / And two of the children thought I was right.
And the two who sided with him blamed me, / And the two who sided with me blamed him, / And they grieved for the one they sided with.
And all were torn with the guilt of judging, / And tortured in soul because they could not admire / Equally him and me.
Now every gardener knows that plants grown in cellars / Or under stones are twisted and yellow and weak.
And no mother would let her baby suck / Diseased milk from her breast.
Yet preachers and judges advise the raising of souls / Where there is no sunlight, but only twilight, / No warmth, but only dampness and cold --
Preachers and judges!