"'Twas sweet to see her strive to hide What every glance revealed;Endowed, the while, with despot-might Her destiny to wield.
I knew myself no perfect man, Nor, as she deemed, divine;I knew that I was glorious--but By her reflected shine;"Her youth, her native energy, Her powers new-born and fresh, 'Twas these with Godhead sanctified My sensual frame of flesh.
Yet, like a god did I descend At last, to meet her love;And, like a god, I then withdrew To my own heaven above.
"And never more could she invoke My presence to her sphere;No prayer, no plaint, no cry of hers Could win my awful ear.
I knew her blinded constancy Would ne'er my deeds betray, And, calm in conscience, whole in heart.
I went my tranquil way.
"Yet, sometimes, I still feel a wish, The fond and flattering pain Of passion's anguish to create In her young breast again.
Bright was the lustre of her eyes, When they caught fire from mine;If I had power--this very hour, Again I'd light their shine.
"But where she is, or how she lives, I have no clue to know;I've heard she long my absence pined, And left her home in woe.
But busied, then, in gathering gold, As I am busied now, I could not turn from such pursuit, To weep a broken vow.
"Nor could I give to fatal risk The fame I ever prized;Even now, I fear, that precious fame Is too much compromised."
An inward trouble dims his eye, Some riddle he would solve;Some method to unloose a knot, His anxious thoughts revolve.
He, pensive, leans against a tree, A leafy evergreen, The boughs, the moonlight, intercept, And hide him like a screen He starts--the tree shakes with his tremor, Yet nothing near him pass'd;He hurries up the garden alley, In strangely sudden haste.
With shaking hand, he lifts the latchet, Steps o'er the threshold stone;The heavy door slips from his fingers--
It shuts, and he is gone.
What touched, transfixed, appalled, his soul?--
A nervous thought, no more;'Twill sink like stone in placid pool, And calm close smoothly o'er.