"Now will I show I love you, Kate," he said,
"And give you gift of love; you shall not wake
"To feel the arrow, feather-deep, within
"Your constant heart. For me, I never meant
"To crawl an hour beyond what time I felt
"The strange, fang'd monster that they call Remorse
"Fold found my waken'd heart. The hour has come;
"And as Love grew, the welded folds of steel
"Slipp'd round in horrid zones. In Love's flaming eyes
"Stared its fell eyeballs, and with Hydra head
"It sank hot fangs in breast, and brow and thigh.
"Come, Kate! O Anguish is a simple knave
"Whom hucksters could outwit with small trade lies,
"When thus so easily his smarting thralls,
"May flee his knout! Come, come, my little Kate;
"The black porch with its fringe of poppies waits--
"A propylaleum hospitably wide.
"No lictors with their fasces at its jaws,
"Its floor as kindly to my fire-vein'd feet
"As to thy silver, lilied, sinless ones.
"O you shall slumber soundly, tho' the white,
"Wild waters pluck the crocus of your hair;
"And scaly spies stare with round, lightless eyes
"At your small face laid on my stony breast.
"Come, Kate! I must not have you wake, dear heart,
"To hear you cry, perchance, on your dead Max."
He turn'd her still, face close upon his breast,
And with his lips upon her soft, ring'd hair,
Leap'd from the bank, low shelving o'er the knot
Of frantic waters at the long slide's foot.
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