' Will I tell you all?' So! this, e'en this, will I do for your great
love's sake;
Think what it costs. 'Then let there be silence—silence you'll count
consent.'
No, and no, and for ever no: rather to cross and to break,
And to lower your passion I speak—that other it was I meant.
That other I meant (but I know not how) to speak of, nor April days,
Nor a man's sweet voice that pleaded—O (but I promised this)—
He never talked of marriage, never; I grant him that praise;
And he bent his stately head, and I lost, and he won with a kiss.
He led me away—O, how poignant sweet the nightingale's note that noon—
I beheld, and each crisped spire of grass to him for my sake was fair,
And warm winds flattered my soul blowing straight from the soul of June,
And a lovely lie was spread on the fields, but the blue was bare.
When I looked up, he said: 'Love, fair love! O rather look in these eyes
With thine far sweeter than eyes of Eve when she stepped the valley
unshod'—
For ONE might be looking through it, he thought, and he would not in any
wise
I should mark it open, limitless, empty, bare 'neath the gaze of God.
Ah me! I was happy—yes, I was; 't is fit you should know it all,
While love was warm and tender and yearning, the rough winds troubled
me not;
I heard them moan without in the forest; heard the chill rains fall—
But I thought my place was sheltered with him—I forgot, I forgot.
After came news of a wife; I think he was glad I should know.
To stay my pleading, 'take me to church and give me my ring';
'You should have spoken before,' he had sighed, when I prayed him so,
For his heart was sick for himself and me, and this bitter thing.
But my dream was over me still,—I was half beguiled,
And he in his kindness left me seldom, O seldom, alone,
And yet love waxed cold, and I saw the face of my little child,
And then at the last I knew what I was, and what I had done.
'YOU will give me the name of wife. YOU will give me a ring.'—O
peace!
You are not let to ruin your life because I ruined mine;
You will go to your people at home. There will be rest and release;
The bitter now will be sweet full soon—ay, and denial divine.
But spare me the ending. I did not wait to be quite cast away;
I left him asleep, and the bare sun rising shone red on my gown.
There was dust in the lane, I remember; prints of feet in it lay,
And honeysuckle trailed in the path that led on to the down.
I was going nowhere—I wandered up, then turned and dared to look back,
Where low in the valley he careless and quiet—quiet and careless slept.
'Did I love him yet?' I loved him. Ay, my heart on the upland track
Cried to him, sighed to him out by the wheat, as I walked, and I wept.