Xxxvi

I GAVE my heart to a woman— I gave it her, branch and root. She bruised, she wrung, she tortured, She cast it under foot.

Under her feet she cast it, She trampled it where it fell, She broke it all to pieces, And each was a clot of hell.

There in the rain and the sunshine They lay and smouldered long; And each, when again she viewed them, Had turned to a living song.

XXXVII To W. A.

OR ever the knightly years were gone With the old world to the grave, I was a King in Babylon And you were a Christian Slave.

I saw, I took, I cast you by, I bent and broke your pride. You loved me well, or I heard them lie, But your longing was denied. Surely I knew that by and by You cursed your gods and died.

And a myriad suns have set and shone Since then upon the grave Decreed by the King in Babylon To her that had been his Slave.

The pride I trampled is now my scathe, For it tramples me again. The old resentment lasts like death, For you love, yet you refrain. I break my heart on your hard unfaith, And I break my heart in vain.

Yet not for an hour do I wish undone The deed beyond the grave, When I was a King in Babylon And you were a Virgin Slave.