First Love
Nathaniel Hawthorne
13 Sep, 2009 08:59 AMI She seemed to bob on her sister's matted silver bike I watched for, not yet able to reach the high seat, working her way up car-free Penn Street, and I would make as if I hadn't seen her when she rode by. After she had passed I learned what emptiness meant and felt its keen brutal lance pierce deep into my thin breast. But worst of all was evenings in autumn when she pedalled home out across Main Street through the smoke of leaves burning at the curbsides, with the moon a soft round lantern hanging over her in the trees. II She was older now and we had gone our ways but she would come walking down Penn Street past my window every Friday evening at exactly ten minutes to eight carrying her violin case and I would stand there behind a thin curtain, waiting. Her rich black hair flowed long, at times a stray strand streaked down over her eye brushing back past a pendant earring. Once she came in a rainstorm her hair ravelled, dripping, her face wet and gleaming— ah, more beautiful she was then than she had ever been before. I would watch her walk upright, buoyant, her visage shining her very carriage betraying her being loved already by someone worthier than I who had inched his way into my banned paradise. Could it be just by chance, I asked, that she was thinking of me as she looked straight ahead walking past, smiling thoughtfully? What pain was caused to me by my inadequacy to muster charms I lacked and character enough to aspire to her high caste. How that loss has haunted me, that wound festered throughout the years. There has been no cure, no escaping, no way back to where my treasure was that ever after I have lacked. Often I would wake at night trembling, calling out her name. One rainy night I thought I saw her through the curtain standing at my window holding out her hand. Then I remembered the thread, tender and thin, we once said we had spun between us, each from our own end and fused where they met to bind us together for all time to come. Flinging back the curtain my eyes met hers and she smiled, like she did then. In her hand she held a thread offering it to me lovingly— and I, with hands extended with fingers straining stretched to take hold, yet each attempt kept falling short of that holy cord. III We were but children then in a Garden of Eden made just for us two, where nothing else mattered but you were loved by me and that I was loved by you. Now the longing for that, my long-lost love, has brought you back anew, so I have begun to love you with that pure innocent love our childrenhearts once knew.
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Comments
Post a Comment08 Feb, 2010 10:41 AM
such a remarkingly beautiful poem. It's emotion frowns my brow when I read it. Your heart aches for this girl. I loved it.
19 Aug, 2010 07:52 PM
This is beautiful.
16 Apr, 2012 01:02 AM
oh my gosh, im like crying right now <3
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