. .
"I have shaped my will; 'tis at hand," said he;
"I subscribe it to-day, that no risk there be
In the hap of things
Of my leaving you menaced by poverty."
"That a boon provision I'm safe to get,
Signed, sealed by my lord as it were a debt,
I cannot doubt,
Or ever this peering sun be set."
"But you flung my arms away from your side,
And faced the wall. No month-old bride
Ere the tour be out
In an air so loth can be justified?
"Ah--had you a male friend once loved well,
Upon whose suit disaster fell
And frustrance swift?
Honest you are, and may care to tell."
She lay impassive, and nothing broke
The stillness other than, stroke by stroke,
The lazy lift
Of the tide below them; till she spoke:
"I once had a friend--a Love, if you will -
Whose wife forsook him, and sank until
She was made a thrall
In a prison-cell for a deed of ill . . .
"He remained alone; and we met--to love,
But barring legitimate joy thereof
Stood a doorless wall,
Though we prized each other all else above.
"And this was why, though I'd touched my prime,
I put off suitors from time to time -
Yourself with the rest -
Till friends, who approved you, called it crime,
"And when misgivings weighed on me
In my lover's absence, hurriedly,
And much distrest,
I took you . . . Ah, that such could be! .
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