| |
| THE BROKEN moon lay in the autumn sky, | |
| And I lay at thy feet; | |
| You bent above me; in the silence I | |
| Could hear my wild heart beat. | |
| |
| I spoke; my soul was full of trembling fears | 5 |
| At what my words would bring: | |
| You rais’d your face, your eyes were full of tears, | |
| As the sweet eyes of Spring. | |
| |
| You kiss’d me then, I worshipp’d at thy feet | |
| Upon the shadowy sod. | 10 |
| Oh, fool, I lov’d thee! lov’d thee, lovely cheat! | |
| Better than Fame or God. | |
| |
| My soul leap’d up beneath thy timid kiss; | |
| What then to me were groans, | |
| Or pain, or death? Earth was a round of bliss, | 15 |
| I seem’d to walk on thrones. | |
| |
| And you were with me ’mong the rushing wheels, | |
| ’Mid Trade’s tumultuous jars; | |
| And where to awe-struck wilds the Night reveals | |
| Her hollow gulfs of stars. | 20 |
| |
| Before your window, as before a shrine, | |
| I ’ve knelt ’mong dew-soak’d flowers, | |
| While distant music-bells, with voices fine, | |
| Measur’d the midnight hours. | |
| |
| There came a fearful moment: I was pale, | 25 |
| You wept, and never spoke, | |
| But clung around me as the woodbine frail | |
| Clings, pleading, round an oak. | |
| |
| Upon my wrong I steadied up my soul, | |
| And flung thee from myself; | 30 |
| I spurn’d thy love as ’t were a rich man’s dole,— | |
| It was my only wealth. | |
| |
| I spurn’d thee! I, who lov’d thee, could have died, | |
| That hop’d to call thee “wife,” | |
| And bear thee, gently-smiling at my side, | 35 |
| Through all the shocks of life! | |
| |
| Too late, thy fatal beauty and thy tears, | |
| Thy vows, thy passionate breath; | |
| I ’ll meet thee not in Life, nor in the spheres | |
| Made visible by Death. | 40 |
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