ess, though my absence
Did but endure until the dawning light;

Since all your beauty--which was _mine_--you squandered
On _that_ which now lies dead across your door;
See here this knife, made keen and bright to kill you.
You shall not see the sun rise any more.

Lie still! Lie still! In all the empty village
Who is there left to hear or heed your cry?
All are gone to labour in the valley,
Who will return before your time to die?

No use to struggle; when I found you sleeping,
I took your hands and bound them to your side,
And both these slender feet, too apt at straying,
Down to the cot on which you lie are tied.

Lie still, Beloved; that dead thing lying yonder,
I hated and I killed, but love is sweet,
And you are more than sweet to me, who love you,
Who decked my eyes with dust from off your feet.

Give me your lips; Ah, lovely and disloyal
Give me yourself again; before you go
Down through the darkness of the Great, Blind Portal,
All of life's best and basest you must know.

Erstwhile Beloved, you were so young and fragile
I held you gently, as one holds a flower:
But now, God knows, what use to still be tender
To one whose life is done within an hour?

I hurt? What then? Death will not hurt you, dearest,
As you hurt me, for just a single night,
You call me cruel, who laid my life in ruins
To gain one little moment of delight.

Look up, look out, across the open doorway
The sunlight streams. The distant hills are blue.
Look at the pale, pink peach trees in our garden,
Sweet fruit will come of them;--but not for you.

The fair, far snow, upon those jagged mountains
That gnaw against the hard blue Afghan sky
Will soon descend, set free by summer sunshine.
You will not see those torrents sweeping by.

The world is not for you. From this day forward,
You must lie still alone; who would not lie
Alone for one night only, though returning
I was, when earliest dawn should break the sky.

There lies my lute, and many strings are broken,
Some one was playing it, and some one tore
The silken tassels round my Hookah woven;
Some one who plays, and smokes, and loves, no more!

Some one who took last night his fill of pleasure,
As I took mine at dawn! The knife went home
Straight through his heart! God only kno