Fierce and more fierce his accents rose:
"Away!" he cried, "false hag of sin:
I see through all this painted gloze
The black and hideous soul within.
"Oh! false and foul, thou art to me
A devil—not a woman fair!
Like coiling snakes I seem to see
Each twisted tress of golden hair.
"I hate thee, as I hate God's foe.
Forth from my castle halls this night:
I could not breathe the air, if so
Thy poison breath were here to blight."
She cowered, shivered, spake no word,
But fell before him at his feet,
As if an angel of the Lord
Had smote her at the judgment-seat.
And on her heart there came at last
The dread, deep consciousness of sin,
That ghastly spectre which had cast
Upon her life this suffering.
And from her hand the gold ring fell—
Her wedding ring—and broke in twain;
The fatal ring that wrought the spell,
The accursed ring of love and pain.
The spell seemed broken then: the word
Came, softly breath'd: "Oh, pardon! grace!"
And pleadingly to her dread lord
She lifted up her angel face—
With golden tresses all unbound,
Still lovely through her shame and loss,
Around his feet her arms she wound,
As sinner might around the cross.
He dashed her twining hands aside,
He spurned her from him as she knelt.
"O hateful beauty!" Erick cried,
"The source of all thy hellish guilt.