Thomas Hardy — The Two Wives

I waited at home all the while they were boating together -        &nbsp       &nbsp My wife and my near neighbour’s wife:        &nbsp Till there entered a woman I loved more than life, And we sat and sat on, and beheld the uprising dark weather,        &nbsp       &nbsp With a sense that some mischief was rife. Tidings came that the boat had capsized, and that one of the ladies        &nbsp       &nbsp Was drowned - which of them was unknown:        &nbsp And I marvelled - my friend’s wife? - or was it my own Who had gone in such wise to the land where the sun as the shade is?        &nbsp       &nbsp - We learnt it was his had so gone. Then I cried in unrest: “He is free! But no good is releasing        &nbsp       &nbsp To him as it would be to me!”        &nbsp “ - But it is,” said the woman I loved, quietly. “How?” I asked her. “ - Because he has long loved me too without ceasing,        &nbsp       &nbsp And it’s just the same thing, don’t you see.”