Yet he could have sworn a little, had not swearing been a sin,
Why should he thus love a maiden who was neither kith nor kin?
Strange to say, the little Thora, when her anger was at rest,
Found some queer, soft thoughts awaking dimly in her troubled breast:[974]
“Had she not too harshly punished an offense not gravely meant?
Could she hope for God’s forgiveness who could rudely thus resent?”
Thus with doubt and passion wrestling, and by vague regrets distraught,
Shyly nursing tender yearnings which she dared not frame in thought,
On the strand alone she wandered,[975] where, in whispered pulses beat,
Drunk with sleep, the mighty ocean, darkly heaving at her feet.[976]