I will say little—it was neither’s fault—
Yet to a bitter time my loving came,
A time of doubt, of faltering, of halt,
A time of passionate begging and of shame,
When I threw all life’s purpose at her feet,
And she stood strange to me, and cold and sweet—
Child that I was! for when it came, that hour,
It was in no wise as my heart had thought—
For comic devils had me in their power,
She laughed at me, we wrangled, and I fought,