“It seemed too good; I laughed to scorn
Her trustful tale. She answered not;
But meekly on the morrow morn
Two massive bags of bright gold brought.
“And when she brought this gold to me,
Red Creole gold, rich, rare, and old,—
When I at last had gold, sweet gold,
I cried in very ecstasy!
“Red gold! rich gold! two bags of gold!
The two stout bags of gold she brought
And gave with scarce a second thought,—
Why, her two hands could hardly hold!
“Now I had gold! two bags of gold!
Two wings of gold to fly, and fly
The wide world’s girth; red gold to hold
Against my heart for aye and aye!
“My country’s lesson: ‘Gold! get gold!’
I learned it well in land of snow;
And what can glow, so brightly glow,
Long winter nights of Northern cold?
“Ay, now at last, at last I had
The one thing, all fair things above
My land had taught me most to love!
A miser now! and I grew mad.
“With those two bags of gold my own,
I then began to plan that night
For flight, for far and sudden flight,—
For flight; and, too, for flight alone.
“I feared! I feared! My heart grew cold,—
Some one might claim this gold of me!
I feared her,—feared her purity,
Feared all things but my bags of gold.
“I grew to hate her face, her creed,—
That face the fairest ever yet
That bowed o’er holy cross or bead,
Or yet was in God’s image set.
“I fled,—nay, not so knavish low
As you have fancied, did I fly;
I sought her at that shrine, and I
Told her full frankly I should go.