The Poetical Works of George Barlow :: :: University of Virginia Library

Then she signed to me to listen, and I stooped above the bed:
“I know better now, forgive me,” with the same sweet voice she said,
Yes the same, but sadly weak now, that had won my heart of old;
Then she grasped my hand so firmly in a tight strange childlike hold—

“Guard my darling, guard my daughter, save her from this world of sin;
There's another Annie left you, there's a victory left to win:
If you see her heart misguided, if you see her going wrong,
Kill her...kill her—that way save her—you can save, if you are strong.

“If you see her copy her mother, if you see her growing too like,
Be more merciful than God is, call on pure-souled death to strike!
Swear to me, whatever happens, you will never let her be
Any rich man's sport and plaything, never let her grow like me.

240

“Do not speak to her of her mother—or, if you must speak at all,
Only speak of early days, dear, long before the mother's fall:
If she wants to know my ending, asks you what became of me,
Say my death was strange and lonely...say that I was drowned at sea....

“Don't forget me, for I loved you—though I did not know it then—
You were grave and I light-hearted, and I could not fathom men:
When they told me that they loved me, I believed it, till I knew
That the grave love was the true love—till at last I fathomed you.

“Till at last I understood, dear, wholly learned and not in part
How my folly had made you suffer, how my sin had wrecked your heart:
Yes, at last I understood you, but the knowledge came in vain;
Now it could not bring atonement—it could only deepen pain.

241

“Why, I wonder, is it—always—that a woman's soul must win
Perfect knowledge of what love is through the trial first of sin?
Perfect knowledge of the noblest through experience of the worst?
When she's on the road to Jesus, why must Judas win her first?

“Ah! I cannot understand it—nothing now to me is clear
Save this one thing, that I love you and I like to feel you near:
Come yet closer, come quite close now, for I cannot see you well;
Tell me, is God very angry? will he send my soul to hell?

“I don't fear him—I can face him, if there's love within his mind;
If he loves me as you love me, he will never be unkind:
If he loves me as you love me, I could love him in the end;
And the next world seems so lonely—I want some one for a friend!

242

“Shall I have to be alone there? I was frightened long ago
In that dark strange cave in Cornwall—when I went alone, you know,
Seeking ferns within the cavern. When you found me, all was right,
For the sunshine came in with you, and that gloomy cave grew bright.

“Put your hand beneath the pillow—I have still some seaweed there,
Dried, in that small sealed-up packet, and a tuft of maiden-hair
That we gathered—you've forgotten?—in remembrance of the cave
And my grand deliverance from it: I should like them in my grave.

“They may serve there to remind me—who can tell us?—it may be—
That you saved me from that darkness and the hoarse threats of the sea:
They may serve to give me hope there”—then the voice failed—then she said,
“It is dark again, dear—kiss me...” as I kissed her she was dead.