 | Lays of France |  |
And for his sake—who quite possest,
In short blind life upon the earth,
The whole irrevocable gift
Of her sweet body's passionate worth—
Whose soul was ever strong and swift
To seek her shaken soul and wrest
Some irremediable word
Out of its troubled speech to drift
Onward eternal and be heard
Among the destinies,—for him,
She now had given up to grief,
To let grief ruin it and dim
And waste it as worms do a leaf,
The rich continual flowering
Of each white unregarded limb,
Yea, and the whole of that rich thing,
Her woman's loveliness, that love
Would perfect secretly and bring
To many a marble grace above
His wont. O how grief slew each day
With deadliest remembering
Of some first day the cruel past
Held golden with joy torn away
For ever! Snake-like, how he cast
His sickly and bewildering coil
About her life, holding his prey,
Her heart, with fierce fang of regret,
And making poisoned thought to spoil
Her desolate fairness with lone fret!
In short blind life upon the earth,
The whole irrevocable gift
Of her sweet body's passionate worth—
Whose soul was ever strong and swift
To seek her shaken soul and wrest
Some irremediable word
Out of its troubled speech to drift
Onward eternal and be heard
98
She now had given up to grief,
To let grief ruin it and dim
And waste it as worms do a leaf,
The rich continual flowering
Of each white unregarded limb,
Yea, and the whole of that rich thing,
Her woman's loveliness, that love
Would perfect secretly and bring
To many a marble grace above
His wont. O how grief slew each day
With deadliest remembering
Of some first day the cruel past
Held golden with joy torn away
For ever! Snake-like, how he cast
His sickly and bewildering coil
About her life, holding his prey,
Her heart, with fierce fang of regret,
And making poisoned thought to spoil
Her desolate fairness with lone fret!
| Lays of France | |