lood is; then would have twitched
the robe from her lay-figure of a poet, and pricked that leathern heart,
to find that only verses could spurt from it. . . .

"And late it was easy; late, you walked
Where a friend might meet you; Edith's name
Arose to one's lip if one laughed or talked;
If I heard good news, you heard the same;
When I woke, I knew that your breath escaped;
I could bide my time, keep alive, alert."

Now she is dead: "no doubting more." . . . But somehow he will get his
good of it! He will keep alive--and long, she shall see; but not like
the others; there shall be no turning aside, and he will begin at once
as he means to end. Those others may go on with the world--get gold,
get women, betray their wives and their husbands and their friends.

"There are two who decline, a woman and I,
And enjoy our death in the darkness here."[301:1]

And he recurs to her cherished, her dwelt-on, adored defects. Only _he_
could have loved her so, in despite of them. The most complex mood of
lovers, this! Humility and pride are mingled; one knows not which is
which--the pride of love, humility of self. Only so could the loved one
have declined to our level; only so could our love acquire value in
those eyes--and yet "the others" did not love so, the defects _were_
valid: there should be some recognition: "_I_ loved, _quand meme_!" Why,
it was almost the defects that brought the thrill:

"I liked that way you had with your curls,
Wound to a ball in a net behind:
Your cheek was chaste as a quaker-girl's,
And your mouth--there was never, to my mind,
Such a funny mouth, for it would not shut;
And the dented chin, too--what a chin!
There were certain ways when you spoke, some words
That you know you never could pronounce:
You were thin, however; like a bird's
Your hand seemed--some would say, the pounce
Of a scaly-footed hawk--all but!
The world was right when it called you thin.

But I turn my back on the world: I take
Your hand, and kneel, and lay to my lips.
Bid me live, Edith!"

--and she shall be queen indeed, shall have high observance, courtship
made perfect. He seems to see her stand there--

"Warm too, and white too: would this wine
Had washed all over that body of yours,
Ere I drank it, and you down with it, thus!"

. . . The wine of his life, that