, for Love!
Passion may lead to Love, as it may lead
Away from Love, but Passion is not Love;
It may exist with Hate; too often leads
Its victim blindfold into hateful bonds,
Under the wild delusion that Love leads.
Love's bonds are adamant, and Love a slave;
And yet Love's service must be perfect freedom.
Candor it craves, for Love is innocent,--
But no enforced fidelity, no ties
Such as the harem shelters. Dupes are they
Who think that Love can ever be compelled!
Only what's lovely Love can truly love,
And fickleness and falsehood are deformed.
Reveal their features, Love may mourn indeed,
But will not rave. Love, even when abandoned,
Feels pity and not anger for the heart
That could not prize Love's warm fidelity.
But Passion, selfish, proud, and murderous,
Seizes the pistol or the knife, and kills;--
And cozened juries make a heroine
Of her who, stung with jealousy or pride,
Or, by some meaner motive, hurled a wreck,
Assassinates her too inconstant wooer.

"'Now do I see how little, in my case,
There was of actual love, how much of passion!
Love's day for me, if it may ever come
In this brief stage, is yet to dawn. You smile;
Love must have hope, a ray of hope, at least,
To catch the hue of life; and so, Miss Mary,
I'll not profess to love you; all I say
Is, that a little hope from you would make me!
But, since we can't be lovers, let's be friends;
Here, in this little wallet, is a check
For an amount that will secure your future
From serious want,--a sum I shall not miss.
But which--'

"With many thanks I answered 'No!'
'What can I do?' he asked, 'to show my debt
To you and Percival?' I shook my head,
And something in the sadness of my smile
Arrested his attention. But that moment
A girl rushed in with cry of 'O, he's killed--
Killed, the poor man!'--'Who?'--'Mr. Percival!'
The name was like a blow upon my heart,
And Kenrick saw it, and supported me.

"But in a moment I was strong. I heard
A scuffling noise of people at the door,
And then a form--'twas Percival's--was borne
Into a room, and placed upon a bed.
Pale and insensible he lay; a surgeon
Came in; at last we got an explanation:
In rescuing from a frightened horse the child
Of a poor woman, Percival had been
Thrown down, an arm been broken, and the pain
Had made him faint. My nervous laugh of joy,
When I was sure tha