Classic Poem

I say that I am done with them—
One memory has turned to gall.
I have my little fun with them—
I have my fun, and that is all.
A woman square? There never was
A woman who was square to me.
Christella—if there ever was
A living devil, it was she.

'Twas Winter in the timber yet
But on the river it was Spring.
And, God, how I remember yet
The woods, the waters, ev'rything.
A vale like that one yonder there,
A road that ran across a hill—
We used to come to wander there;
'Twas Spring, and it was Winter still.

One night she picked a flow'r or two,
These faded red anemones.
I think we walked an hour or two—
That was the night she gave me these.
She said the same things o'er and o'er,
The story that will never tire;
And, fool, I worshiped more and more,
And all the sky was red as fire.

They caught them many miles away,
The woman and the man at last;
But something drove the smiles away
From that Christella of the past.
“You do not know!” she cried to me
And looked that look of old again;
I guess she would have lied to me,
If I had let her, even then.

I struck her—God forgive me that;
A woman is a woman still.
But God He will believe me that
I struck when other men would kill.
That night, that minute, to the West
I turned my face forever more;
And not a woman through the West
Has ever passed my cabin door.

My name McKinney? Yes, it was—
And many more have done the same.
How is it that you guess it was
Who know me by another name?
She said it? Hold the candle. So
Another reaps the wage of sin?
Be careful how you handle—Go
And get the doctor! Bring her in!