And when, before his eyes and in full sight
Of the still striving ships, that gleaming line
Of galleys decked for no rude field of fight
Fled fair and unashamed in the sunshine;
Then, surely, he fell down as one but blind
Through sudden fallen darkness, even to grope
If haply some least broken he might find
Of all the broken ends of life and hope.
Well, out of all his fates now was there none
But Death, the utter end; and for no sake,
Save for some last love-look beneath the sun,
Had he delayed that end of all to take!
But now, because love—armed indeed of him
With utter rule of all his destinies—
Had chosen even to slay him for a whim,
And the mere remnant was none else than his,
And since, for sure, the sorest way of death
Were but to die not falling at the feet
Of that one woman who with look or breath
Could change it if she would and make it sweet;
He chose before all fame he might have caught
With death in foremost fighting, now to cling
Upon her steps who at this last had wrought
His death-wound shameful with a lover’s sting.
O how the memories seemed to throb and start
Welling from out the unstanched past!—seemed nigh
Already opening there in all his heart
The canker wound wherewith he was to die!
And so, though she were quite estranged, and now
He held no costlier gift to win her with;
Yet, following, he would find her, and, somehow,
Lay in her hands that latest gift—his death:
For now all piteously his heart relied
On a mere hope of love dwindled to this—
To fall some fair waste moment at her side
And feel perhaps a tear or even a kiss;
Since surely, in some waste of day or night,
He thought, the face of love out of the Past,
With look of his, should rise up in her sight
And make some kind of pleading at the last.