natural you should unfeeling be!

Behold me therefore ready to forgive;
Not gay, of course! but doing what I can
To bear up bravely,--deeply though I grieve
To be, through you, the most unhappy man.

II
But you will own that I was in the right
When in my downcast moods I used to say
That your sweet eyes, my hope, once, and delight!
Were come to look like eyes that will betray.

It was an evil lie, you used to swear,
And your glance, which was lying, dear, would flame,--
Poor fire, near out, one stirs to make it flare!--
And in your soft voice you would say, "Je t'aime!"

Alas! that one should clutch at happiness
In sense's, season's, everything's despite!--
But 'twas an hour of gleeful bitterness
When I became convinced that I was right!

III
And wherefore should I lay my heart-wounds bare?
You love me not,--an end there, lady mine;
And as I do not choose that one shall dare
To pity,--I must suffer without sign.

Yes, suffer! For I loved you well, did I,--
But like a loyal soldier will I stand
Till, hurt to death, he staggers off to die,
Still filled with love for an ungrateful land.

O you that were my Beauty and my Own,
Although from you derive all my mischance,
Are not you still my Home, then, you alone,
As young and mad and beautiful as France?

IV
Now I do not intend--what were the gain?--
To dwell with streaming eyes upon the past;
But yet my love which you may think lies slain,
Perhaps is only wide awake at last.

My love, perhaps,--which now is memory!--
Although beneath your blows it cringe and cry
And bleed to will, and must, as I foresee,
Still suffer long and much before it die,--

Judges you justly when it seems aware
Of some not all banal compunction,
And of your memory in its despair
Reproaching you, "Ah, fi! it was ill done!"

V
I see you still. I softly pushed the door--
As one o'erwhelmed with weariness you lay;
But O light body love should soon restore,
You bounded up, tearful at once and gay.

O what embraces, kisses sweet and wild!
Myself, from brimming eyes I laughed to you
Those mo