II
What force this wind has! As it runs
Around each unprotecting tree
It seems some beast; and now I see
Its form, its eyes; a woman’s once:—
Dark eyes! that blaze as lionly
As some bayed beast’s, that will not flee
The pine-knots and derides the guns.—
Or is it but the thought in me!
The thought of that which is to be,
The deed, that rises shadowy?
III
And now the trees and whipping rain
Confuse them.... I must drive it hence,
The memory of her eyes! the tense
Wild look within them of hard pain!...
Yet she must die—with every sense
Strung to beholding knowledge, whence
My heart shall be made whole again.—
Here I will wait where night is dense.
Soon she will come, like Innocence,
Thinking her youth is her defense.
IV
And when she leaves,—and none perceives,—
The old gray manor, where the eight
Old locusts, (twisted shadows), freight
With mossy murmurings its eaves,
One moment at the iron gate
She ’ll tarry. Then, with breath abate,
Come rustling through the autumn leaves.
And I will take both hands and sate
My mouth on hers and say, “You ’re late”;
She ’ll laugh to hear I had to wait....
V
O passion of past vows, revive
Imagination, and renew
The ardor of love’s language you
For love’s rose-altar kept alive!
Repeat the oaths that rang with dew
And starlight!—Tell her she is true
As beautiful.—I will contrive
To make her think I have no clue
To all her falseness. I will woo
As once I wooed before I knew.
VI
And we will walk against the wind;
The shuffling leaves about our feet;
Our ruin, as the wood’s, complete,
Because one woman so hath sinned
And never suffered. She shall meet
No murder in my eyes; no heat
Of fate in holding hand that ’s pinned
To hers. To make her trust to beat,
I ’ll kiss her hand, her hair,—like wheat
Of affluent summer,—saying “Sweet.”