What false inducement could have tempted you?”
“Woe me!” I sobb’d, “I marvell’d when you said
I could do so, the time I told you here
That I would rather be a nun than be
That rich man’s wife.”
“You dear, poor girl,” he sigh’d,
“Those words were but a whiff, whiff light as breath
One blows at flies that come to trouble him.
And can it be that they?—I half believe
(My words have conjured cursèd deeds before)