THE WOMAN

With her fair face she made my heaven, Beneath whose stars and moon and sun I worshiped, praying, having striven, For wealth through which she might be won.

And yet she had no soul: A woman As fair and cruel as a god; Who played with hearts as nothing human, And tossed them by and on them trod.

She killed a soul; she did it nightly; Luring it forth from peace and prayer, To strangle it, and laughing lightly, Cast it into the gutter there.

And yet, not for a purer vision Would I exchange; or Paradise Possess instead of Hell, my prison, Where burns the passion of her eyes.