Lucile :: :: University of Virginia Library

She look'd at Lord Alfred. No word he replied;
He was startled, and felt stunn'd, scared, stupefied.
This cold, keen philosophy, trenchant as steel,
On the lips of a woman so young as Lucile,
Appall'd him. He seem'd to remember her yet
A child—the weak sport of each moment's regret,
Blindly yielding herself to the errors of life,
The deceptions of youth, and borne down by the strife
And the tumult of passion; the tremulous toy
Of each transient emotion of grief or of joy.

But to watch her pronounce the death warrant of all
The illusions of life—lift, unflinching, the pall
From the bier of the dead Past—that woman so fair,
And so young, yet her own self-survivor; who there
Traced her life's epitaph with a finger so cold!
'Twas a picture that touch'd him with pain to behold.
He himself knew—none better—the things to be said
Upon subjects like this. Yet he bow'd down his head:
He had not the courage, he dared not decide
To aid that frail hand to the heart's suicide.