er, Anselmo, slower. Can it be that I
sinned most, when I held his words before hers,--his black damning
falsehoods?--Mother of God! do you know what you say?

Tell me, then, that I am a fool,--that not through other loss than the
loss of faith did the curse fall on me! Tell me, then, that these dark
ways lead me out on a height! Needful the shadow and the groping. He
anointed my eyes with the clay beneath his feet,--I was blind, but now I
see God!

Repeat, Anselmo, repeat that she was true, though the knowledge blast me
with self-consuming pangs. But, true or false, one thing she promised
me: though other spheres, though other lives had come between us, she
would be with me in my dying hour. Soon the bell will toll that hour,
and toll my knell!

* * * * *

What is this, Anselmo,--this face that hangs between me and
heaven,--this pitying, sorrowing countenance?--Ave Maria!--Never! Never!
Still of the earth, this melting mouth, these violet eyes, this brow
of snow, this fragrant bosom pillowing my head! Mirage of fainting
fancy,--out, beautiful thing, away! Do not torment me with such a
despairing lie! do not cheat me into death! Let me at least look on the
unobstructed sky, as I sink lower and lower to my eternal rest!

* * * * *

Still there? Still there? Still bending above me, smiling and weeping,
sweet April face? Oh, were they truly thy lips that lay on mine, then,
that stamped them with life's impress, that woke me? Are they truly thy
fingers that pressed my throbless temples? These arms that are wound
about me, are thine? Thy heart beats for me, thy tears flow, thy perfect
womanhood does not recoil in horror? Lenore! Lenore! is it thou?

* * * * *

Nay, nay, Sweet, ask me no question; I have wronged thee; he shall tell
thee how. Yet best thou shouldst never hear it. Sin to thee greater than
all treachery had been. Forgive, forgive! I go,--in meeting, leave thee;
but be glad for me,--whether I sleep or whether I wake, know that a
great curse will have fallen from me. Swathe my memory in thy love. Kiss
me again, child! Rock me a little; stoop lower, and croon those old
mountain-songs that once you sang when the sunshine soaked the sward and
your hair was crowned with blue morning-glories.

Ah, your song drowns in tears! Yet you do not wish me to live, Lenore? O
love, I can do nothing but die!

The sunlight fades