had made me its victim,
Through his faith and my falsehood yet claiming me. Then I was
smitten
With so great remorse, such grief for him, and compassion,
That, if he could have come back to me, I had welcomed and loved
him
More than man ever was loved. Alas, for me that another
Holds his place in my heart evermore! Alas, that I listened
When the words, whose daring lured my spirit and lulled it,
Seemed to take my blame away with my will of resistance!

Do not make haste to condemn me: my will was the will of a
woman,--
Fain to be broken by love. Yet unto the last I endeavored
What I could to be faithful still to the past and my penance;
And as we stood that night in the old Roman garden together--
By the fountain whose passionate tears but now had implored me
In his pleading voice--and he waited my answer, I told him
All that had been before of delusion and guilt, and conjured him
Not to darken his fate with mine. The costly endeavor
Only was subtler betrayal. O me, from the pang of confession,
Sprang what strange delight, as I tore from its lurking that
horror--
Brooded upon so long--with the hope that at last I might see it
Through his eyes, unblurred by the tears that disordered my vision!
Oh, with what rapturous triumph I humbled my spirit before him,
That he might lift me and soothe me, and make that dreary
remembrance,
All this confused present, seem only some sickness of fancy,
Only a morbid folly, no certain and actual trouble!
If from that refuge I fled with words of too feeble denial--
Bade him hate me, with sobs that entreated his tenderest pity,
Moved mute lips and left the meaningless farewell unuttered--
She that never has loved, alone can wholly condemn me.

IV.

How could he other than follow? My heart had bidden him follow,
Nor had my lips forbidden; and Rome yet glimmered behind me,
When my soul yearned towards his from the sudden forlornness of
absence.
Everywhere his face looked from vanishing glimpses of faces,
Everywhere his voice reached my senses in fugitive cadence.
Sick, through the storied cities, with wretched hopes, and
upbraidings
Of my own heart for its hopes, I went from wonder to wonder,
Blind to them all, or only beholding them wronged, and related,
Through some trick of wayward thought, to myself and my trouble.
Not surprise nor regret, but