Death heard at last my ceaseless prayer
For peace, and stifled all her sighs;
The one I did not love; my fair
Fond wife I could not learn to prize,
Lay dead with roses in her hair,
Lay dead with pity in her eyes.
Pity for me who loved her not,
Pity for me who marred her life;
I who was weary of my lot,
I who was haunted by that wife,
That sweet one who my sins forgot,
Who calmed the hell-hates in me rife.
I murdered her by pain and dread,
I drugged the young love in her frame;
Before me now she lieth dead,
And yet I feel no burning shame.
I merely hate the hour we wed,
I merely know I gained my aim.
She died when died the sullen day,
Her breath was caught by wondering night,
Out in the dismal twilight grey,
Her martyred soul found rest in flight.
I laughed to see her fade away.
I laughed to see her cheeks grow white.
And yet with all her heart of hearts
She worshipped me in noble ways,
A love that no misgiving parts,
A love that weeps, and soothes and prays,
A love like balm upon great smarts,
Hot loves of nights, calm loves of days.
When priests had gone, when all was still,
I shut her in her coffin's gloom,
And then without one pitying thrill,
Urged by the awful magnet, doom,
I placed her dainty body chill
Under a sofa in the room.
And over it I made a bed
Of silks and flowers and spices rare;
Around the gloomy room I spread
A hundred lights of dazzling glare;
Lights perfume-reeking, incense-fed,
Lights gold and wavy like her hair!
And on a table crushed with gold,
With plate and glass of hand-work fine,
With fruit and dainties all its hold,
I set rich food and crimson wine.
Sweet wines of fire to warm the cold;
The utter cold of hearts like mine.
I loved a creature with great eyes
Like startled fawn's, alive with light,
Purple and passionate of dyes,
Tipped with an awful flame of night.
A beauty with a world of sighs
To lavish on my life-long blight.
And I had loved her thro' long days
With fiendish loves that wild dreams gave;
Mirrored my soul was in the rays
Of her black eye-souls, and a slave
Was I, when her sweet words of praise
Set my hot, tingling flesh to crave.
And on the night my wife had died,
She came to sup with me and feast;
She, flushed with splendor, I, with pride,
Laughed as we kissed, while mirth increased,
There by the lonely corpse's side.
The last of all my thoughts; the least.
And thro' that summer midnight blue,
The moon poured in its tranquil rays,
Like steel-besilvered, cold of hue
Down on the lamp's hot, smoking blaze.
The fumes of blood-wine fiercer grew,
The air re-echoed Bacchic lays.
My pompous, peerless beauty leaned,
Wine-drugged and yearning on my breast,
Her thin, long silken lashes screened
The wonders of her eyes' unrest.
While sudden in me rose the Fiend!
While from me shivering flew the Blest.
Lust reveled in the tainted air,
And mocked the spirit and her sighs,
While she I did not love, my fair
Fond wife I could not learn to prize,
Lay dead with roses in her hair,
Lay dead with pity in her eyes.
For peace, and stifled all her sighs;
The one I did not love; my fair
Fond wife I could not learn to prize,
Lay dead with roses in her hair,
Lay dead with pity in her eyes.
Pity for me who loved her not,
Pity for me who marred her life;
I who was weary of my lot,
I who was haunted by that wife,
That sweet one who my sins forgot,
Who calmed the hell-hates in me rife.
I murdered her by pain and dread,
I drugged the young love in her frame;
Before me now she lieth dead,
And yet I feel no burning shame.
I merely hate the hour we wed,
I merely know I gained my aim.
She died when died the sullen day,
Her breath was caught by wondering night,
Out in the dismal twilight grey,
Her martyred soul found rest in flight.
I laughed to see her fade away.
I laughed to see her cheeks grow white.
And yet with all her heart of hearts
She worshipped me in noble ways,
A love that no misgiving parts,
A love that weeps, and soothes and prays,
A love like balm upon great smarts,
Hot loves of nights, calm loves of days.
When priests had gone, when all was still,
I shut her in her coffin's gloom,
And then without one pitying thrill,
Urged by the awful magnet, doom,
I placed her dainty body chill
Under a sofa in the room.
And over it I made a bed
Of silks and flowers and spices rare;
Around the gloomy room I spread
A hundred lights of dazzling glare;
Lights perfume-reeking, incense-fed,
Lights gold and wavy like her hair!
And on a table crushed with gold,
With plate and glass of hand-work fine,
With fruit and dainties all its hold,
I set rich food and crimson wine.
Sweet wines of fire to warm the cold;
The utter cold of hearts like mine.
I loved a creature with great eyes
Like startled fawn's, alive with light,
Purple and passionate of dyes,
Tipped with an awful flame of night.
A beauty with a world of sighs
To lavish on my life-long blight.
And I had loved her thro' long days
With fiendish loves that wild dreams gave;
Mirrored my soul was in the rays
Of her black eye-souls, and a slave
Was I, when her sweet words of praise
Set my hot, tingling flesh to crave.
And on the night my wife had died,
She came to sup with me and feast;
She, flushed with splendor, I, with pride,
Laughed as we kissed, while mirth increased,
There by the lonely corpse's side.
The last of all my thoughts; the least.
And thro' that summer midnight blue,
The moon poured in its tranquil rays,
Like steel-besilvered, cold of hue
Down on the lamp's hot, smoking blaze.
The fumes of blood-wine fiercer grew,
The air re-echoed Bacchic lays.
My pompous, peerless beauty leaned,
Wine-drugged and yearning on my breast,
Her thin, long silken lashes screened
The wonders of her eyes' unrest.
While sudden in me rose the Fiend!
While from me shivering flew the Blest.
Lust reveled in the tainted air,
And mocked the spirit and her sighs,
While she I did not love, my fair
Fond wife I could not learn to prize,
Lay dead with roses in her hair,
Lay dead with pity in her eyes.