Off: it is not true;
For it cannot be
That the prize I drew
Is a blank to me!
WEYMOUTH, 1869.
FOUR FOOTPRINTS
Here are the tracks upon the sand
Where stood last evening she and I -
Pressed heart to heart and hand to hand;
The morning sun has baked them dry.
I kissed her wet face--wet with rain,
For arid grief had burnt up tears,
While reached us as in sleeping pain
The distant gurgling of the weirs.
"I have married him--yes; feel that ring;
'Tis a week ago that he put it on . . .
A dutiful daughter does this thing,
And resignation succeeds anon!
"But that I body and soul was yours
Ere he'd possession, he'll never know.
He's a confident man. 'The husband scores,'
He says, 'in the long run' . . . Now, Dear, go!"
I went. And to-day I pass the spot;
It is only a smart the more to endure;
And she whom I held is as though she were not,
For they have resumed their honeymoon tour.
IN THE VAULTED WAY
In the vaulted way, where the passage turned
To the shadowy corner that none could see,
You paused for our parting,--plaintively;
Though overnight had come words that burned
My fond frail happiness out of me.
And then I kissed you,--despite my thought
That our spell must end when reflection came
On what you had deemed me, whose one long aim
Had been to serve you; that what I sought
Lay not in a heart that could breathe such blame.
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