THE WORST OF IT. 1. WOULD it were I had been false, not you: On my speckled hide; not you, the pride 2. I had dipped in life's struggle, and out again, Bore specks of it here, there, easy to see, When I found my swan and the cure was plain; The dull turned bright as I caught your white On my bosom: you saved me - saved in vain If you ruined yourself, and all through me! 3. Yes, all through the speckled beast that I am, words, no angel set down, some elf Mistook, for an oath, an epigram! 4. Yes, might I judge you, here were my heart, I choose to be yours, for my proper part, Yours, leave or take, or mar me or make; If I acquiesce, why should you be teased With the conscience-prick and the memory-smart? 5. But what will God say? O, my sweet, Think, and be sorry you did this thing! Though earth were unworthy to feel your feet, There's a Heaven above may deserve your love: Should you forfeit Heaven for a snapt gold ring And a promise broke, were it just or meet? 6. And I to have tempted you! I, who tried Unwise, I loved, and was lowly, loved and aspired, Loved, grieving or glad, till I made you mad, And you meant to have hated and despised Whereas you deceived me nor inquired! 7. She, ruined? How? No Heaven for her? That looked like marble and smelt like myrrh? And she go graceless, she graced now Beyond all saints, as themselves aver? 8. Hardly! That must be understood! The earth is your place of penance, then ; And what will it prove? I desire your good, But, plot as I may, I can find no way How a blow should fall, such as falls on men, Nor prove too much for your womanhood. 9. It will come, I suspect, at the end of life, And journeyed my stage, and earned my wage, When the Devil stabs you, to lend the knife. 10. He stabs for the minute of trivial wrong, The happy, that lasted my whole life long: For a promise broke, not for first words spoke, The true, the only, that turn my grave To a blaze of joy and a crash of song. 11. Witness beforehand! Off I trip On a safe path gay through the flowers you flung: My very name made great by your lip, And my heart aglow with the good I know Of a perfect year when we both were young, And I tasted the angels' fellowship. |