Rebuked
Well, push me in the background of your thought — Perhaps I need to stay there for awhile; If you can do without a look—a smile— I can but learn the lesson I am taught.
Anna M. Johnson
SourceLicence:Public domain (US, unrenewed)
Well, push me in the background of your thought — Perhaps I need to stay there for awhile; If you can do without a look—a smile— I can but learn the lesson I am taught.
Someone has just pushed the speaker aside, and what we get is a four-line reply. On the surface it's calm, even obedient. "Well, push me in the background of your thought" sounds like permission, as if the speaker is saying, go ahead, I'll cope. But the little phrases pile up: "perhaps I need to stay there," "I can but learn the lesson I am taught." The speaker agrees to be treated as a student who has been corrected, which fits the title, "Rebuked."
What makes the poem sting is the gap between the tone and the feeling. The lack of "a look—a smile" is the real wound, and the dashes make the speaker's voice catch on it. The mood is restrained and quietly sad, with some bitterness underneath. The speaker accepts the distance without arguing, but the acceptance reads less like peace than like hurt pride, a way of saying "fine" while meaning the opposite.