Was he; too wise to frighten her with an untimely shock.
Would I follow him? Yes, in a frail raft o’er the sea;
Or a savage’s hut—or a Bedouin’s roving tent;
What mattered it? he was so dear, so dear to me,
That my heart, my life, would go with him where’ere he went.
But the years I spent while the shadow day by day
Hung black above my head like a threatening doom;
The years I strove to thrust it with my weak hands away.