XIX

     No state is enviable.  To the luck alone
     Of some few favoured men I would put claim. 
     I bleed, but her who wounds I will not blame. 
     Have I not felt her heart as ’twere my own
     Beat thro’ me? could I hurt her? heaven and hell! 
     But I could hurt her cruelly!  Can I let
     My Love’s old time-piece to another set,
     Swear it can’t stop, and must for ever swell? 
     Sure, that’s one way Love drifts into the mart
     Where goat-legged buyers throng.  I see not plain:-
     My meaning is, it must not be again. 
     Great God! the maddest gambler throws his heart. 
     If any state be enviable on earth,
     ’Tis yon born idiot’s, who, as days go by,
     Still rubs his hands before him, like a fly,
     In a queer sort of meditative mirth.

     XX

     I am not of those miserable males
     Who sniff at vice and, daring not to snap,
     Do therefore hope for heaven.  I take the hap
     Of all my deeds.  The wind that fills my sails
     Propels; but I am helmsman.  Am I wrecked,
     I know the devil has sufficient weight
     To bear:  I lay it not on him, or fate. 
     Besides, he’s damned.  That man I do suspect
     A coward, who would burden the poor deuce
     With what ensues from his own slipperiness. 
     I have just found a wanton-scented tress
     In an old desk, dusty for lack of use. 
     Of days and nights it is demonstrative,
     That, like some aged star, gleam luridly. 
     If for those times I must ask charity,
     Have I not any charity to give?

     XXI

     We three are on the cedar-shadowed lawn;
     My friend being third.  He who at love once laughed
     Is in the weak rib by a fatal shaft
     Struck through, and tells his passion’s bashful dawn
     And radiant culmination, glorious crown,
     When ‘this’ she said:  went ‘thus’:  most wondrous she. 
     Our eyes grow white, encountering:  that we are three,
     Forgetful; then together we look down. 
     But he demands our blessing; is convinced
     That words of wedded lovers must bring good. 
     We question; if we dare! or if we should! 
     And pat him, with light laugh.  We have not winced. 
     Next, she has fallen.  Fainting points the sign
     To happy things in wedlock.  When she wakes,
     She looks the star that thro’ the cedar shakes: 
     Her lost moist hand clings mortally to mine.

     XXII

     What may the woman labour to confess? 
     There is about her mouth a nervous twitch. 
     ’Tis something to be told, or hidden:- which? 
     I get a glimpse of hell in this mild guess. 
     She has desires of touch, as if to feel
     That all the household things are things she knew. 
     She stops before the glass.  What sight in view?