As spoke she, o’er her mien such feeling stirr’d,
    That from the solid rock, with lively fear,
    “Haply I am not what you deem,” I heard;
    And then methought, “If she but help me here,
    No life can ever weary be, or drear;
    To make me weep, return, my banish’d Lord!”
    I know not how, but thence, the power restored,
    Blaming no other than myself, I went,
    And, nor alive, nor dead, the long day past. 
    But, because time flies fast,
    And the pen answers ill my good intent,
    Full many a thing long written in my mind
    I here omit; and only mention such
    Whereat who hears them now will marvel much. 
    Death so his hand around my vitals twined,
    Not silence from its grasp my heart could save,
    Or succour to its outraged virtue bring: 
    As speech to me was a forbidden thing,
    To paper and to ink my griefs I gave—­
    Life, not my own, is lost through you who dig my grave.

    I fondly thought before her eyes, at length,
    Though low and lost, some mercy to obtain;
    And this the hope which lent my spirit strength. 
    Sometimes humility o’ercomes disdain,
    Sometimes inflames it to worse spite again;
    This knew I, who so long was left in night,
    That from such prayers had disappear’d my light;
    Till I, who sought her still, nor found, alas! 
    Even her shade, nor of her feet a sign,
    Outwearied and supine,
    As one who midway sleeps, upon the grass
    Threw me, and there, accusing the brief ray,
    Of bitter tears I loosed the prison’d flood,
    To flow and fall, to them as seem’d it good. 
    Ne’er vanish’d snow before the sun away,
    As then to melt apace it me befell,
    Till, ’neath a spreading beech a fountain swell’d;
    Long in that change my humid course I held,—­
    Who ever saw from Man a true fount well? 
    And yet, though strange it sound, things known and sure I tell.

    The soul from God its nobler nature gains
    (For none save He such favour could bestow)
    And like our Maker its high state retains,
    To pardon who is never tired, nor slow,
    If but with humble heart and suppliant show,
    For mercy for past sins to Him we bend;
    And if, against his wont, He seem to lend,
    Awhile, a cold ear to our earnest prayers,
    ’Tis that right fear the sinner more may fill;
    For he repents but ill
    His old crime for another who prepares. 
    Thus, when my lady, while her bosom yearn’d
    With pity, deign’d to look on me, and knew
    That equal with my fault its penance grew,
    To my old state and shape I soon return’d. 
    But nought there is on earth in which the wise
    May trust, for, wearying braving her afresh,
    To rugged stone she changed my quivering flesh. 
    So that, in their old strain, my broken cries
    In vain ask’d death, or told her one name to deaf skies.