The costliest gift a man can give from his cradle to his death.
The third time that I saw her—this woman called Estelle—
She passed her milk-white arm through mine and dazzled me with her spell;
A blissful fever thrilled my veins, and there, in the moon-beams white,
I yielded my soul to the fierce control of that maddening delight!
And at many a trysting afterwards she wove my heart-strings round
Her delicate fingers, twisting them, and chanting low as she wound;
The rune she sang rang sweet and clear like the chime of a witch’s bell;
Its echo haunts me even now, with the word, Estelle! Estelle!
Ah, then, as a dozen before me had, I lay at last at her feet,