Forgive you? . . . Oh, of course, dear.
A dozen times a week!
We women were created
Forgiveness but to speak.
You’d die before you’d hurt me
Intentionally? . . . True.
But it is not, O dearest,
The thing you mean to do—
It’s what you do, unthinking,
That makes the quick tear start;
The tear may be forgotten—
But the hurt stays in the heart.
And tho’ I may forgive you
A dozen times a day,
Yet each forgiveness wears, dear,
A little love away.
As the impatient river
Wears out the patient sand,
Or as the fickle ocean
Wears out the faithful land.
And one day you’ll be grieving,
And chiding me, no doubt,
Because so much forgiving
Has worn a great love out.
A draft of “Wearing Out Love,” courtesy of the Ella Higginson Papers, Center for Pacific Northwest Studies, Heritage Resources, Western Washington University, Bellingham Washington.
“Wearing Out Love” appears in Higginson’s When the Birds Go North Again (1898).