The cheat in love may use each villain art,

And boast the deed that breaks the victim’s heart.

“Four years were past; I might again have found

Some erring wish, but for another wound:

Lovely my daughter grew, her face was fair,

But no expression ever brighten’d there;

I doubted long, and vainly strove to make

Some certain meaning of the words she spake;

But meaning there was none, and I survey’d

With dread the beauties of my idiot-maid.