Or Ever the Knightly Years Were Gone
By William Ernest Henley
Or ever the knightly years were gone,
With the old world to the grave,
I was a king in Babylon,
And you were a Christian slave.
I saw, I took, I cast you by,
I bent and broke your pride,
You loved me well, or I heard them lie,
But your longing was denied;
Surely I knew that by and by
You cursed your gods and died.
And a myriad suns have set and shone,
Since then upon the grave,
Decreed by the king in Babylon,
To her that had been his slave.
The pride I trampled is now my scathe,
For it tramples me again,
The old resentment lasts like death,
For you love, yet you refrain,
I break my heart on your hard unfaith,
And I break my heart in vain.
Yet not for an hour do I wish undone,
The dead beyond the grave,
When I was a king in Babylon,
And you were a Virgin slave.
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