THE TEMPTATION.

Let me go! I cannot be All you think me, pure and true: Those brave jewel-names crown you, They were trampled down by me.

Horrid ghosts rise up between You and me; I dare not pass! What might be is dead; what was Is its poison, O my Queen!

I should wither up your life, Blacken, blight its maiden flower; You would live to curse the hour When you made yourself my wife.

Yet, your hand held out, your eyes Pleading, longing, brimmed with tears ... I have lived in hell for years: Do not show me Paradise.

Lest I answer: "Take me, then! Take me, save me if you can, Worse than any other man, Loving more than other men."