The Collected Works of William Morris :: :: University of Virginia Library

But now Alcestis rose, and by the bed
She stood, with wild thoughts passing through her head.
Dried were her tears, her troubled heart and sore
Throbbed with the anguish of her love no more.
A strange look on the dying man she cast,
Then covered up her face and said: “O past,
Past the sweet times that I remember well!
Alas, that such a tale my heart can tell!
Ah, how I trusted him! what love was mine!
How sweet to feel his arms about me twine
And my heart beat with his! what wealth of bliss
To hear his praises! all to come to this,
That now I durst not look upon his face
Lest in my heart that other thing have place,
That which I knew not, that which men call hate.

“O me, the bitterness of God and Fate!
A little time ago we two were one;
I had not lost him though his life was done,
For still was he in me—but now alone
Through the thick darkness must my soul make moan,
For I must die: how can I live to bear
An empty heart about, the nurse of fear?
How can I live to die some other tide,
And dying, hear my loveless name outcried
About the portals of that weary land
Whereby my shadowy feet should come to stand.

“Alcestis! O Alcestis, hadst thou known
That thou one day shouldst thus be left alone,
How hadst thou borne a living soul to love!
Hadst thou not rather lifted hands to Jove,

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To turn thine heart to stone, thy front to brass,
That through this wondrous world thy soul might pass,
Well pleased and careless, as Diana goes
Through the thick woods, all pitiless of those
Her shafts smite down? Alas! how could it be?
Can a God give a God's delights to thee?
Nay rather, Jove, but give me once again,
If for one moment only, that sweet pain,
The love I had while still I thought to live!
Ah! wilt thou not, since unto thee I give
My life, my hope? But thou—I come to thee.
Thou sleepest: O wake not, nor speak to me!
In silence let my last hour pass away,
And men forget my bitter feeble day.”