Page:Poems of Sentiment and Imagination.djvu/157

Rh Exulting in thy glorious power of song,

And feeling, seeing, knowing nothing else

But thy most wondrous loveliness, forgot

The world was black and rotten to the core,

Upon whose favor I taught thee to lean.

But bitterly, most bitterly I learned

To curse its dark beguilings. Oh! that hour

In which I learned that thou wert false to me,

Was full of wilder torments than the skill

Of the arch-demon could ever have invented!

Then how I cursed thee, Viola! how I raved,

And stamped, and heaped upon thy name

The vilest epithets my mind could frame!

God knows what my mad phrensy would have done,

Hadst thou not left a pleader in the cause

Of innocence and virtue. Our sweet babe,

When in my rage I would have smothered it,

Looked up and smiled, with such a heavenly smile—

So bright, and soft, and pure—my soul was bent

From its dark purpose; and I kissed its mouth,

So like thine own in beauty, and its eyes,

So dreamy, deep, and soft, and wept such tears

As manhood knows but once. Oh, fearfully

Was my ambition punished! fearfully

Was my great wrong avenged, when once again

You crossed my threshhold but to faint and die,

Murmuring the words of bitterest repentance!

From that hour my spirit's chords were broken;

And life holds nothing to enchain me here,

But my bright child—my Azlea.

Enter.

Azlea. Forgive thy child for her unlawful act;

But coming out to seek thee, thy strange words

Roused all my wonder and my sympathy,

And I stood silently and listened.