Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950). Spoon River Anthology. 1916.

36. Julia Miller

WE quarreled that morning,

For he was sixty-five, and I was thirty,

And I was nervous and heavy with the child

Whose birth I dreaded.

I thought over the last letter written me

By that estranged young soul

Whose betrayal of me I had concealed

By marrying the old man.

Then I took morphine and sat down to read.

Across the blackness that came over my eyes

I see the flickering light of these words even now:

“And Jesus said unto him, Verily

I say unto thee, To-day thou shalt

Be with me in paradise.”