Page:The children of the night.djvu/80

 And we were never apart, from the moment My eyes flashed into her eyes the message That swept itself in a quivering answer Back through my strange lost being. My pulses Leapt with an aching speed; and the measure Of this great world grew small and smaller, Till it seemed the sky and the land and the ocean Closed at last in a mist all golden Around us two. And we stood for a season Like gods outflung from chaos, dreaming That we were the king and the queen of the fire That reddened the clouds of love that held us Blind to the new world soon to be ours— Ours to seize and sway. The passion Of that great love was a nameless passion, Bright as the blaze of the sun at noonday, Wild as the flames of hell; but, mark you, Never a whit less pure for its fervor. The baseness in me (for I was human) Burned like a worm, and perished; and nothing Was left me then but a soul that mingled Itself with hers, and swayed and shuddered In fearful triumph. When I consider That helpless love and the cursed folly That wrecked my life for the sake of a woman Who broke with a laugh the chains of her marriage (Whatever the word may mean), I wonder If all the woe was her sin, or whether