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Still on the
tower stood the vane,
A black yew gloomed the
stagnant air,
I peered athwart the chancel pane
And saw the altar cold and bare.
A clog of lead was
round my feet,
A band of pain across my brow;
"Cold altar, Heaven and earth shall meet
Before you
hear my marriage vow."
I turned and hummed a
bitter song
That mocked the wholesome human heart,
And then we met in wrath and wrong,
We met, but only
met to part.
Full cold my greeting was and dry;
She faintly smiled, she hardly moved;
I saw with
half-unconscious eye
She wore the colours I approved.
She took the little ivory chest,
With half a sigh
she turned the key,
Then raised her head with lips
comprest,
And gave my letters back to me.
And gave
the trinkets and the rings,
My gifts, when gifts of
mine could please;
As looks a father on the things
Of his dead son, I looked on these.
She told me
all her friends had said;
I raged against the public
liar;
She talked as if her love were dead,
But in
my words were seeds of fire.
"No more of love; your
sex is known:
I never will be twice deceived.
Henceforth I trust the man alone,
The woman cannot be
believed.
Through slander, meanest spawn of Hell
-
And woman's slander is the worst,
And you, whom
once I loved so well,
Through you, my life will be
accurst."
I spoke with heart, and heat and force,
I shook her breast with vague alarms -
Like torrents
from a mountain's source
We rushed into each other's
arms.
We parted: sweetly gleamed the stars,
And sweet the vapour-braided blue,
Low breezes fanned
the belfry bars,
As homeward by the church I drew.
The very graves appeared to smile,
So fresh they rose
in shadowed swells;
"Dark porch," I said, "and silent
aisle,
There comes a sound of marriage bells."
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