Why I was glad I loved, that she had seen.
She was too pure to care, perhaps too cold,
So, in the wilderness I should grow old,
With but the memory of her wide grave eyes
To comfort me, shut out from Paradise.
On the closed door I knocked and knocked again,
And suddenly it opened on a chain
And I peered close, and, eager, looked inside—
Then turned me to the world that waited, wide:
’Twas not for pride I suffered, not for sin;