By the sense accursed and instant, that if even I spake wisely
I spake basely—using truth, if what I spake indeed was true,
To avenge wrong on a woman—her, who sate there weighing nicely
A poor manhood's worth, found guilty of such deeds as I could do!—
LXXXVII.
By such wrong and woe exhausted—what I suffered and occasioned,—
As a wild horse through a city runs with lightning in his eyes,
And then dashing at a church's cold and passive wall, impassioned,
Strikes the death into his burning brain, and blindly drops and dies—
LXXXVIII.
So I fell, struck down before her—do you blame me, friend, for weakness?
'T was my strength of passion slew me!—fell before her like a stone;
Fast the dreadful world rolled from me on its roaring wheels of blackness:
When the light came I was lying in this chamber and alone.
LXXXIX.
Oh, of course she charged her lacqueys to bear out the sickly burden,
And to cast it from her scornful sight, but not beyond the gate;
She is too kind to be cruel, and too haughty not to pardon
Such a man as I; 't were something to be level to her hate.
XC.
But for me—you now are conscious why, my friend, I write this letter,
How my life is read all backward, and the charm of life undone.
I shall leave her house at dawn; I would to-night, if I were better—
And I charge my soul to hold my body strengthened for the sun.
XCI.