running into white. 
     If I the death of Love had deeply planned,
     I never could have made it half so sure,
     As by the unblest kisses which upbraid
     The full-waked sense; or failing that, degrade! 
     ’Tis morning:  but no morning can restore
     What we have forfeited.  I see no sin: 
     The wrong is mixed.  In tragic life, God wot,
     No villain need be!  Passions spin the plot: 
     We are betrayed by what is false within.

     XLIV

     They say, that Pity in Love’s service dwells,
     A porter at the rosy temple’s gate. 
     I missed him going:  but it is my fate
     To come upon him now beside his wells;
     Whereby I know that I Love’s temple leave,
     And that the purple doors have closed behind. 
     Poor soul! if, in those early days unkind,
     Thy power to sting had been but power to grieve,
     We now might with an equal spirit meet,
     And not be matched like innocence and vice. 
     She for the Temple’s worship has paid price,
     And takes the coin of Pity as a cheat. 
     She sees through simulation to the bone: 
     What’s best in her impels her to the worst: 
     Never, she cries, shall Pity soothe Love’s thirst,
     Or foul hypocrisy for truth atone!

     XLV

     It is the season of the sweet wild rose,
     My Lady’s emblem in the heart of me! 
     So golden-crowned shines she gloriously,
     And with that softest dream of blood she glows;
     Mild as an evening heaven round Hesper bright! 
     I pluck the flower, and smell it, and revive
     The time when in her eyes I stood alive. 
     I seem to look upon it out of Night. 
     Here’s Madam, stepping hastily.  Her whims
     Bid her demand the flower, which I let drop. 
     As I proceed, I feel her sharply stop,
     And crush it under heel with trembling limbs. 
     She joins me in a cat-like way, and talks
     Of company, and even condescends
     To utter laughing scandal of old friends. 
     These are the summer days, and these our walks.

     XLVI

     At last we parley:  we so strangely dumb
     In such a close communion!  It befell
     About the sounding of the Matin-bell,
     And lo! her place was vacant, and the hum
     Of loneliness was round me.  Then I rose,
     And my disordered brain did guide my foot
     To that old wood where our first love-salute
     Was interchanged:  the source of many throes! 
     There did I see her, not alone.  I moved
     Toward her, and made proffer of my arm. 
     She took it simply, with no rude alarm;
     And that disturbing shadow passed reproved. 
     I felt the pained speech coming, and declared
     My firm belief in her, ere she could speak. 
     A ghastly morning came into her cheek,
     While with a widening soul on me she stared.