It was his pride
Not his vanity
For the two are not one in the same
A dance, a meeting, words exchanged
It was his pride I suppose, that got in the way

Two chess pieces moving against a checkered floor
Just a dance, just a ball, nothing more
Poetry for love is quite horrible
I propose a dance to ignite affections
But only if one’s partner is barely tolerable

We moved we spoke
We were introduced again and again
Lord, how I detested him the most
It was his pride I suppose, that got in the way
His pride, his pride that mortified my own
From an exchange of words to an exchange of steps
We moved across the dance hall
The music, the couples
The words unfortunately spoken aloud by an overbearing mother
But it was not his pride that got in the way of a second dance
It was his foulness
His unwillingness to give a second chance, let alone a second glance

We moved on, through dances, through seasons
Through dinners and card games
But, my own were the reasons
That his advances were defeated
How could I stand a man who lived life in such shadow?
We moved through engagements, failed and fulfilled
But never our own
And I suppose it was my own pride that got in the way

His love chose me, but my pride was too strong
It was a blinding light, my pride was
A light that broke the darkest corners
And with my pride I assumed his nature
But I was wrong
I was many a time wrong
If only my pride had not been too strong
I would have let his love outshine it all
But I ignored, nay I discouraged my own affections
Affections for a man that I now love dearly
Affections that were hidden behind a terrible complexion
Of love and loyalty, and of pride and of prejudice

So I suppose in the end it was not pride at all
It was loyalty that got in the way
We both had engaged in a battle to defend close friends
And we did nothing but hurt them all
But then came a moment when our pride and our loyalty
Were outshined by a great downfall
A love that I saw as an affliction
It grew and it grew
And it moved through the checkered board of the countryside
And through the gritty dance halls of the town
And it penetrated my mind, and broke my pride
So now I suppose it was not pride
Not pride at all that pierced me in the side
But it was an understanding,
A bond, not a prejudice at all
It was love I suppose
Not pride at all