—“Nay: though thy bride remains inside
Her father’s walls,” said she,
“The one most dear is with thee here,
For thou dost love but me.”
Then I: “But she, my only choice,
Is now at Kingsbere Grove?”
Again her soft mysterious voice:
“I am thy only Love.”
Thus still she vouched, and still I said,
“O sprite, that cannot be!” . . .
It was as if my bosom bled,
So much she troubled me.
The sprite resumed: “Thou hast transferred
To her dull form awhile
My beauty, fame, and deed, and word,
My gestures and my smile.
“O fatuous man, this truth infer,
Brides are not what they seem;
Thou lovest what thou dreamest her;
I am thy very dream!”
—“O then,” I answered miserably,
Speaking as scarce I knew,
“My loved one, I must wed with thee
If what thou say’st be true!”
She, proudly, thinning in the gloom:
“Though, since troth-plight began,
I’ve ever stood as bride to groom,
I wed no mortal man!”
Thereat she vanished by the Cross
That, entering Kingsbere town,
The two long lanes form, near the fosse
Below the faneless Down.
—When I arrived and met my bride,
Her look was pinched and thin,
As if her soul had shrunk and died,
And left a waste within.