| WHEN he, who is the unforgiven, | |
| Beheld her first, he found her fair: | |
| No promise ever dreamt in heaven | |
| Could then have lured him anywhere | |
| That would have been away from there; | 5 |
| And all his wits had lightly striven, | |
| Foiled with her voice, and eyes, and hair. | |
| |
| There’s nothing in the saints and sages | |
| To meet the shafts her glances had, | |
| Or such as hers have had for ages | 10 |
| To blind a man till he be glad, | |
| And humble him till he be mad. | |
| The story would have many pages, | |
| And would be neither good nor bad. | |
| |
| And, having followed, you would find him | 15 |
| Where properly the play begins; | |
| But look for no red light behind him— | |
| No fumes of many-colored sins, | |
| Fanned high by screaming violins. | |
| God knows what good it was to blind him, | 20 |
| Or whether man or woman wins. | |
| |
| And by the same eternal token, | |
| Who knows just how it will all end?— | |
| This drama of hard words unspoken, | |
| This fireside farce, without a friend | 25 |
| Or enemy to comprehend | |
| What augurs when two lives are broken, | |
| And fear finds nothing left to mend. | |
| |
| He stares in vain for what awaits him, | |
| And sees in Love a coin to toss; | 30 |
| He smiles, and her cold hush berates him | |
| Beneath his hard half of the cross; | |
| They wonder why it ever was; | |
| And she, the unforgiving, hates him | |
| More for her lack than for her loss. | 35 |
| |
| He feeds with pride his indecision, | |
| And shrinks from what will not occur, | |
| Bequeathing with infirm derision | |
| His ashes to the days that were, | |
| Before she made him prisoner; | 40 |
| And labors to retrieve the vision | |
| That he must once have had of her. | |
| |
| He waits, and there awaits an ending, | |
| And he knows neither what nor when; | |
| But no magicians are attending | 45 |
| To make him see as he saw then, | |
| And he will never find again | |
| The face that once had been the rending | |
| Of all his purpose among men. | |
| |
| He blames her not, nor does he chide her, | 50 |
| And she has nothing new to say; | |
| If he were Bluebeard he could hide her, | |
| But that’s not written in the play, | |
| And there will be no change today; | |
| Although, to the serene outsider, | 55 |
| There still would seem to be a way. | |
