It may be

my lord is weary, that his brain is

overwrought;

Soothe him with thy finer fancies, touch him

with thy lighter thought.

He will answer to the purpose, easy things to

understand,

Better thou wert dead before me, tho' I slew

thee with my hand!

Better thou and I were lying, hidden from the

heart's disgrace,

Roll'd in one another's arms, and silent in a

last embrace.

Cursed be the social wants that sin against the

strength of youth!

Cursed be the social lies that warp us from

the living truth!

Cursed be the sickly forms that err from hon

est Nature's rule!

Cursed be the gold that gilds the straiten'd

forehead of the fool!

Well 't is well that I should bluster!

-

Hadst thou less unworthy proved —

Would to God - for I had loved thee more

than ever wife was loved.

Am I mad, that I should cherish that which

bears but bitter fruit?

I will pluck it from my bosom, tho' my heart

be at the root.

Never, tho' my mortal summers to such length

of years should come

As the many-winter'd crow that leads the

clanging rookery home.

Where is comfort ? in division of the records

of the mind?

Can I part her from herself, and love her, as I

knew her, kind?

I remember one that perish'd: sweetly did she

speak and move:

Such a one do I remember, whom to look at

was to love.

Can I think of her as dead, and love her for

Drug thy memories, lest thou learn it, lest thy

heart be put to proof,

In the dead unhappy night, and when the rain

is on the roof.

Like a dog, he hunts in dreams, and thou art

staring at the wall,

Where the dying night-lamp flickers, and the

shadows rise and fall.

Then a hand shall pass before thee, pointing

to his drunken sleep,

To thy widow'd marriage pillows, to the tears

that thou wilt weep.