What Did It Mean?

What did it mean that noontide, when You bade me pluck the flower Within the other woman’s bower, Whom I knew nought of then? I thought the flower blushed deeplier—aye, And as I drew its stalk to me It seemed to breathe: “I am, I see, Made use of in a human play.” And while I plucked, upstarted sheer As phantom from the pane thereby A corpse-like countenance, with eye That iced me by its baleful peer— Silent, as from a bier . . . When I came back your face had changed, It was no face for me; O did it speak of hearts estranged, And deadly rivalry In times before I darked your door, To seise me of Mere second love, Which still the haunting first deranged?