It could have loved a thing so frail!
Yet scorn—it was not scorn that stung—
’Twas pity—horror—grief, that moved me—
I felt the wrong—the shameless wrong,
But spared the heart that once had loved me!
Yes, faithless, false, as now I found it,
That heart had beat against my own,
And I—I could not bear to wound it,
When all its shielding worth was flown.
What though I could believe no more