"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 one Black red o'er my heart.--You see, 't is good To die so for love!... Does the sinking sun, Through the dull vast west burst banked with blood?-- Or is it that life will at last have done?...
So you are her husband? and--well, you see, You see she is dead ... But your face, how white! --Is it with hate or with misery?-- What matters it now!--For, at last, the night Falls and the silence covers me.
From the terrace here, where the hills indent, You can see the uttermost battlement Of the castle there; the Cliffords' home; Where the seasons go and the seasons come And never a footstep else doth fall Save the prowling fox's; the ancient hall Echoes no voice save the owlet's call: Its turret chambers are homes for the bat; And its courts are tangled and wild to see; And where in the cellar was once the rat, The viper and toad move stealthily. Long years have passed since the place was burned, And he sailed to the wars in France and earned The name that he bears of the bold and true On his tomb. Long years, since my lord, Sir Hugh, Lived; and I was his favorite page, And the thing then happened; and he of an age When a man will love and be loved again, Or hie to the wars or a monastery, Or toil till he conquer his heart's sore pain, Or drink and forget it and finally bury.