When Gilbert came we both took thought:
“Since comfort and good cheer,”
Said he, “So readily are bought,
He’s welcome to thee, Dear.”
So when my lord flung liberally
His gold in Gilbert’s hands,
I coaxed and got my brothers three
Made stewards of his lands.
And then I coaxed him to install
My other kith and kin,
With aim to benefit them all
Before his love ran thin.
And next I craved to be possessed
Of plate and jewels rare.
He groaned: “You give me, Love, no rest,
Take all the law will spare!”
And so in course of years my wealth
Became a goodly hoard,
My steward brethren, too, by stealth
Had each a fortune stored.
Thereafter in the gloom he’d walk,
And by and by began
To say aloud in absent talk,
“I am a ruined man!—
“I hardly could have thought,” he said,
“When first I looked on thee,
That one so soft, so rosy red,
Could thus have beggared me!”
Seeing his fair estates in pawn,
And him in such decline,
I knew that his domain had gone
To lift up me and mine.
Next month upon a Sunday morn
A gunshot sounded nigh:
By his own hand my lordly born
Had doomed himself to die.
“Live, my dear lord, and much of thine
Shall be restored to thee!”
He smiled, and said ’twixt word and sign,
“Alas—that cannot be!”