XL

     I bade my Lady think what she might mean. 
     Know I my meaning, I?  Can I love one,
     And yet be jealous of another?  None
     Commits such folly.  Terrible Love, I ween,
     Has might, even dead, half sighing to upheave
     The lightless seas of selfishness amain: 
     Seas that in a man’s heart have no rain
     To fall and still them.  Peace can I achieve,
     By turning to this fountain-source of woe,
     This woman, who’s to Love as fire to wood? 
     She breathed the violet breath of maidenhood
     Against my kisses once! but I say, No! 
     The thing is mocked at!  Helplessly afloat,
     I know not what I do, whereto I strive. 
     The dread that my old love may be alive
     Has seized my nursling new love by the throat.

     XLI

     How many a thing which we cast to the ground,
     When others pick it up becomes a gem! 
     We grasp at all the wealth it is to them;
     And by reflected light its worth is found. 
     Yet for us still ’tis nothing! and that zeal
     Of false appreciation quickly fades. 
     This truth is little known to human shades,
     How rare from their own instinct ’tis to feel! 
     They waste the soul with spurious desire,
     That is not the ripe flame upon the bough. 
     We two have taken up a lifeless vow
     To rob a living passion:  dust for fire! 
     Madam is grave, and eyes the clock that tells
     Approaching midnight.  We have struck despair
     Into two hearts.  O, look we like a pair
     Who for fresh nuptials joyfully yield all else?

     XLII

     I am to follow her.  There is much grace
     In woman when thus bent on martyrdom. 
     They think that dignity of soul may come,
     Perchance, with dignity of body.  Base! 
     But I was taken by that air of cold
     And statuesque sedateness, when she said
     ‘I’m going’; lit a taper, bowed her head,
     And went, as with the stride of Pallas bold. 
     Fleshly indifference horrible!  The hands
     Of Time now signal:  O, she’s safe from me! 
     Within those secret walls what do I see? 
     Where first she set the taper down she stands: 
     Not Pallas:  Hebe shamed!  Thoughts black as death
     Like a stirred pool in sunshine break.  Her wrists
     I catch:  she faltering, as she half resists,
     ‘You love . . .? love . . .? love . . .?’ all on an indrawn breath.

     XLIII

     Mark where the pressing wind shoots javelin-like
     Its skeleton shadow on the broad-backed wave! 
     Here is a fitting spot to dig Love’s grave;
     Here where the ponderous breakers plunge and strike,
     And dart their hissing tongues high up the sand: 
     In hearing of the ocean, and in sight
     Of those ribbed wind-streaks