To her lover, the Clifford, she told this—there
He had faced with his love the talons of Death—
Only for her, who did stay with a stare
Of reproach all his heat and say in a breath,
"Is love, that thou sware to me aye and so often,
To live too feeble or—how?—doth it soften
And weaken away and—to die?—why die?—
Live and be strong! and this is why."—
Her words are glued here so!... I remember
All as well as that sullen December,