Page:An epic of women and other poems (IA epicofwomenother00osha).pdf/164

 —Therefore, my Love, I will not let you wake. Nay—though you are so pure now and have sworn— Lest you betray me as you did last time, And times before that, having sworn as now. But you are mine—my beautiful, my own! And your lips said it while your heart beat here Against mine—thrilling with a thought of me; Your looks were almost piteous with a prayer That I—that God would save you. Shall your mouth, The chaste, the holy one that I have kissed Be desecrate once more? Shall your own arms Embrace and hug the very shame of you? Shall this, your heart that made you mine, be false —Go once more seeking out adulteries?

Not so: I strike the holy steel in it.

—It was the only way to keep her mine.