Page:Poems by Frances Fuller Victor.djvu/19

 For, whispering softly in my ear

Such gentle thanks as might allay

Love's tender shame, left on my brow,

And on each hand, a warm light kiss—

I feel them burn there even now—

But all my fetters fell at this.

I answered like an injured queen:

Its our own defense when we're surprised—

The way our weakness is disguised;

I said things that I could not mean,

Or ought not—since it was a lie

That love had not been in my mind;

'Twas in the air I breathed; the sky

Shone love, and murmured it the wind.

It had absorbed my soul with bliss;

My blood ran love in every vein,

And to have been beloved again

Were heavenly—so I thought till this

Unlooked-for answer to the prayer

My heart was making with its might.

Thus challenged, caught in sudden snare,

Like two clouds meeting on a height

And, pausing first in short strange lull,

Then bursting into awful storm,

Opposing feelings multiform,

Struggled in silence, and then, full 13