Page:Maurine and Other Poems (1910).pdf/97



Last night I knelt low at my lady’s feet. One soft, caressing hand played with my hair, And one I kissed and fondled. Kneeling there, I deemed my meed of happiness complete.

She was so fair, so full of witching wiles— Of fascinating tricks of mouth and eye; So womanly withal, but not too shy— And all my heaven was compassed by her smiles.

Her soft touch on my cheek and forehead sent, Like little arrows, thrills of tenderness Through all my frame. I trembled with excess Of love, and sighed the sigh of great content.

When any mortal dares to so rejoice, I think a jealous Heaven, bending low, Reaches a stern hand forth and deals a blow. Sweet through the dusk I heard my lady’s voice.

“My love!” she sighed, “my Carlos!” even now I feel the perfumed zephyr of her breath Bearing to me those words of living death, And starting out the cold drops on my brow.

For I am Paul—not Carlos! Who is he That, in the supreme hour of love’s delight, Veiled by the shadows of the falling night, She should breathe low his name, forgetting me?

I will not ask her! ’twere a fruitless task, For, woman-like, she would make me believe Some well-told tale; and sigh, and seem to grieve, And call me cruel. Nay, I will not ask.

But this man Carlos, whosoe’er he be, Has turned my cup of nectar into gall, Since I know he has claimed some one or all Of these delights my lady grants to me.

He must have knelt and kissed her, in some sad And tender twilight, when the day grew dim. How else could I remind her so of him?