'Twas in the old church yard I told you all,
Beneath the Norway pine;
There, by your mother's grave, I thought to call
That poor lost mother mine.

I saw you bend above an orphan child
To kiss its winsome face;
This woman, quoth I, is all undefiled,
A miracle of grace.

The world could never guess your riddle quite,
Nor shake your soft repose;
The same meek orbs that shone upon the night,
Were stars when morning rose.

O hypocrite! your cool, Antarctic sighs
Make memory an eclipse;
I feel the serpent from those poisoned eyes
Browsing upon my lips.

You changed . You stumbled from the better path;
You robed your vows on biers;
And now my lexicon of love and wrath
Is syllabled with tears.

You changed! Your eyes are purple-lidded beads,
Your hair a coil of flax,
And the cold splendor of your shape recedes
Into a mold of wax!

O wormwood! that a thing of wax and wire
Could make me love it so;
I, with a Hecla-heart and nerve of fire,
Gasping amid that snow.

And now, repenting, you would be my wife,
Would pawn your troth to me —
Poor Doll! beyond the icebergs of your life
There throbs no open sea!

I sought it once, and lo! my former self
Is shipwrecked in the quest.
See the impassioned Franklin, with his pelf,
Dead on your gelid breast.

You scream — 'tis but a delicate doll's cry —
A trick, as all perceive it;
They say you're stuffed with sawdust — though a lie,
A skeptic might believe it!