;
So I spoke what I thought--"Then, it appears"--

And stopped with, it seemed, my soul in my gaze--
"That you are not happy, Leona of Verne?
There is that at your heart which--well, betrays
These mocking mummeries.--Live and learn!--
And this is the truth that the poet says:--

"'I went to my love and I told with my heart,
In words of the soul, that are silent in speech,
All of my passion, too sacred for art;
But she heard me not--for I could not reach
Her in that world of which she is part.'--

"That world, where I saw you as one afar
Sees palms and waters, and knows that sands,
Pitiless sands, before him are;
Yet follows ever with helpless hands
Till he sinks at last.--You were my star,

"My hope, my heaven!--I loved you!... Life
Is less than nothing to me!"... She turned,
With a wild look, saying--"Now I am his wife
You come and tell me!--Indeed you are learn'd
In the language of hearts that's unheard!"... A Knife,

As she ceased and leaned on a cabinet,--
A curve of scintillant steel, keen, cold,--
Fell icily clashing; some curio met
Among Asian antiques, bronze and gold,
Mystical, curiously graven and set.

A Bactrian dagger, whose slightest prick
Through its ancient poison was death, I knew;
If true that she loved me--then!--And quick
To the unspoken thought she replied, "'T is true!
I have loved you long, and my soul was sick,

"Sick for the love that has made me weak,
Weak to your will even now!"--And more
She said, in my arms, that I shall not speak--
And the dagger there on the polished floor
Ever her eyes, while she spoke, would seek.

"'And it came to pass on the wedding-day'"--
Then my lips for a moment were crushed to hers--
"'That they found her dead in her bridal array,'"
She sang; then said, "You finish the verse!
Finish the song, for you know the way."

And I whispered "yes," for my mind had thought
Her own thought through--that life were a hell
To her as to me,--So the blade I caught
With a sudden hand; and she leaned, and--well,
What a little wound, and the blood it brought

To crimson her bosom!--I set her there
In that carven chair; then turned the blade,--
With its glittering haft one savage glare
Of gold and jewels, wildly inlaid,--
To my breast, for the poisonous point rent bare.

A stain of blood on her bosom, and