Wander, till his love's eyes met hers,
Fixed and wide in their despair?
Did he burst his prison fetters,
Did he write sweet, yearning letters,
"A Lucile,—en Angleterre"?
Letters where the reader, reading,
Halts him with a sudden stop,
For he feels a man's heart bleeding,
Draining out its pain's exceeding—
Half a life, at every drop:
Letters where Love's iteration
Seems to warble and to rave;
Letters where the pent sensation
Leaps to lyric exultation,
Like a song-bird from a grave.
Where, through Passion's wild repeating,
Peep the Pagan and the Gaul,
Politics and love competing,
Abelard and Cato greeting,
Rousseau ramping over all.
Yet your critic's right—you waive it,
Whirled along the fever-flood;
And its touch of truth shall save it,
And its tender rain shall lave it,
For at least you read Amavit,
Written there in tears of blood.
Did they hunt him to his hiding,
Tracking traces in the snow?
Did they tempt him out, confiding,
Shoot him ruthless down, deriding,
By the ruined old château?
Left to lie, with thin lips resting
Frozen to a smile of scorn,
Just the bitter thought's suggesting,
At this excellent new jesting
Of the rabble Devil-born.
Till some "tiger-monkey," finding
These few words the covers bear,
Some swift rush of pity blinding,
Sent them in the shot-pierced binding
"A Lucile, en Angleterre."