Comment 9 of 10, added on March 15th, 2006 at 3:28 AM.

This poem should resonate with anyone who has felt something regretfully come to an end.

Those incredible lines "kings in a tumbrel rarely
Went to their deaths as proud as this one went", Kings going to execution could not have had more pride than she.

If you know anything of Edna st Vincent's proud/aloof/detatched character [a king's] you can see how she attempted to meet this ending [for her a true internal death/loss] with some semblance of dignity and 'self preservation'.

Indeed she does somehow "in her own way" by giving her "full consent"- she is trying to reduce the injury to her pride.

Asserting the natural freedom in them both,she states "I was not one for keeping rubbed to a cage a wing that would be free" she would not hold to a 'love' that could not be contained or had.

Reflecting that if her feelings were more shallow "If I had loved you less, or played you slyly" she would have been able to go on falsely and conceal her real state or feelings.But at the cost of truth or "words I value highly" adding that such a charade would bear no resemblance to a purer time or "summer before".

She survives her loss to say that "Day dried my eyes" and goes on to suggest that she might "outlive this" that after all "men do".Here she is attempting to have the last word and is both wounded and defiant.

At the end of the poem this sense of self preservation she remarks will allow no bitterness,it will leave only good things "to say of you".

Kaatrien from Australia