Page:The torrent and The night before.djvu/48

 Or seems to stop,—till it comes to cheer them Again with a larger sound. The curtain Of life just then is lifted a little To give to their sight new joys—new sorrows— Or nothing at all, sometimes.—I was watching The slow sweet scenes of a golden picture, Flushed and alive with a long delusion That made the murmur of home, when I shuddered And felt like a knife that awful silence That comes when the music goes—forever. The truth came over my life like a darkness Over a forest where one man wanders, Worse than alone. For a time I staggered And stumbled on with a weak persistence After the phantom of hope that darted And dodged like a frightened thing before me, To quit me at last, and vanish. Nothing Was left me then but the curse of living And bearing through all my days the fever And thirst of a poisoned love.—Were I stronger, Or weaker, perhaps my scorn had saved me— Given me strength to crush my sorrow With hate for her and the world that praised her— To have left her, then and there,—to have conquered That old false life with a new and a wiser;— Such things are easy in words. You listen, And frown, I suppose, that I never mention That beautiful word, forgive!—I forgave her First of all; and I praised kind heaven That I was a brave clean man to do it; And then I tried to forget.—Forgiveness! . . . What does it mean when the one forgiven Shivers and weeps and clings and kisses The credulous fool that holds her, and tells him A thousand things of a good man's mercy, And then slips off with a laugh and plunges Back to the sin she has quit for a season