Page:The torrent and The night before.djvu/52

 I’m partly a man—for all my weakness,— If weakness it were to stand and murder Before men's eyes the man who had murdered Me, and driven my burning forehead With horns for the world to laugh at Trust me!— And try to believe my words but a portion Of what God's purpose made me!—The coward Within me cries for this;—and I beg you Now, as I come to the end, to remember That women and men are on earth to travel All on a different road. Hereafter The roads may meet I trust in something— I know not what Well, this was the way of it:— Stung with the shame and the secret fury That comes to the man who has thrown his pittance Of self at a traitor's feet, I wandered Weeks and weeks in a baffled frenzy, Till at last the devil spoke. I heard him, And laughed at the love that strove to touch me— The dead, lost love;—and I gripped the demon Close to my breast, and held him, praising The fates and the furies that gave me the courage To follow his wild command.—Forgetful Of all to come when the work was over— There came to me then no stony vision Of these three hundred days—I cherished An awful joy in my brain. I pondered And weighed the thing in my mind, and gloried In life to think that I was to conquer Death at his own dark door,—and chuckled To think of it done so cleanly.—One evening I knew that my time had come. I shuddered A little, but rather for doubt than terror, And followed him—led by the nameless devil I worshipped and called my brother.—The city Shone like a dream that night: the windows Flashed with a piercing flame, and the pavements