Explore "The Duel" by Ella Wheeler Wilcox on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Oh many a duel the world has seen / That was bitter with hate, that was red with gore, / But I sing of a duel by far more cruel / Than ever by poet was sung before. / It was waged by night, yea by day and by night, / With never a pause or halt or rest, / And the curious spot where this battle was fought / Was the throbbing heart in a woman's breast.
There met two rivals in deadly strife, / And they fought for this woman so pale and proud. / One was a man in the prime of life, / And one was a corpse in a moldy shroud; / One wrapped in a sheet from his head to his feet, / The other one clothed in worldly fashion; / But a rival to dread is a man who is dead, / If he has been loved in life with passion.