She waited, till with quickened breath
She spoke, as one who banisheth
Reserves that lovecraft heeds so well,
To ease some mighty wish to tell:
“’Twas I,” said she,
“Who wrote thus clinchingly.
VII
“My lover’s wife—aye, wife!—knew nought
Of what we felt, and bore, and thought . . .
He’d said: ‘I wed with thee or die:
She stands between, ’tis true. But why?
Do thou agree,
And—she shalt cease to be.’
“How I held back, how love supreme
Involved me madly in his scheme
Why should I say? . . . I wrote assent
(You found it hid) to his intent . . .
She—died . . . But he
Came not to wed with me.
IX
“O shrink not, Love!—Had these eyes seen
But once thine own, such had not been!
But we were strangers . . . Thus the plot
Cleared passion’s path.—Why came he not
To wed with me? . . .
He wived the gibbet-tree.”
X
—Under that oak of heretofore
Sat Sweetheart mine with me no more:
By many a Fiord, and Strom, and Fleuve
Have I since wandered . . . Soon, for love,
Distraught went she—
’Twas said for love of me.