 | Poems: By Menella Bute Smedley |  |
Scene VII.
CRANSTON,alone.
Ah, comfortable scorn; were her heart cold,
Thou wouldst not be so bitter! In thy sting
Is healing. I am cruel to find it so,
For I myself have wrought this bitter fate;
I have uncrowned my life, and henceforth set it
Beyond the reach of hope,—not she, but I;
Not her kind hand that trembled in my hold,
Not her soft eyes which seek me now through tears,
Not her imperial heart, which might have been,
Which was mine own. I will say it to myself,—
'Tis all I have, or shall have. To know this,
That being loved, and loving, with such force
As fills the whole capacity of man,
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The clue that should have drawn me up to bliss,
And give the meagre story of my days
No close but those indifferent words “he died;”
He died, who never lived. O, she is lost!
Were it to do, it were undone for ever!
The madness of my virtue has destroyed me.
Fool, fool!—My happy weakness comes too late;
It can but dusk the honour of my grief
Through my long line of undelightful noons,
And all grey drearness of my evening times.
| Poems: By Menella Bute Smedley | |