What does it mean when the one forgiven Shivers and weeps and clings and kisses The credulous fool that holds her, and tells him A thousand things of a good man's mercy, And then slips off with a laugh and plunges Back to the sin she has quit for a season, To tell him that hell and the world are better For her than a prophet's heaven? Believe me, The love that dies ere its flames are wasted In search of an alien soul is better, Better by far than the lonely passion That burns back into the heart that feeds it.
For I loved her still, and the more she mocked me, --Fooled with her endless pleading promise Of future faith, -- the more I believed her The penitent thing she seemed; and the stronger Her choking arms and her small hot kisses Bound me and burned my brain to pity, The more she grew to the heavenly creature That brightened the life I had lost forever.
The truth was gone somehow for the moment;The curtain fell for a time; and I fancied We were again like gods together, Loving again with the old glad rapture.
But scenes like these, too often repeated, Failed at last, and her guile was wasted.
I made an end of her shrewd caresses And told her a few straight words.She took them Full at their worth -- and the farce was over.
.....
At first my dreams of the past upheld me, But they were a short support: the present Pushed them away, and I fell.The mission Of life (whatever it was) was blasted;My game was lost.And I met the winner Of that foul deal as a sick slave gathers His painful strength at the sight of his master;And when he was past I cursed him, fearful Of that strange chance which makes us mighty Or mean, or both.I cursed him and hated The stones he pressed with his heel; I followed His easy march with a backward envy, And cursed myself for the beast within me.
But pride is the master of love, and the vision Of those old days grew faint and fainter: