I judge them not!--have most forgiving ears,
And list right willingly to idle words,
Listen and smile and never stain a cheek.
Yet not such words your father's son should use
With me, my father's daughter. You forget
What should most precious be to memory's heart,
Love that dared death; and so, farewell." Farewell
It was in sooth; for after that one time,
Though he had fain with passion-breathed vows
Besieged that marble citadel her breast,
He got no speech of her: she chose her walks;
Let only moon and star look on the face
That could well risk the candor of the sun;
Ran not to lattice at each sound of hoof;
By stream or hedge-row plucked no pansies more,
Mistrusting Proserpina's cruel fate,
Herself up-gathered in Sicilian fields;
At chapel--for one needs to chapel go
A-Sunday--glanced not either right or left,
But with black eyelash wedded to white cheek
Knelt there impassive, like the marble girl
That at the foot-end of his father's tomb,
Inside the chancel where the Wyndhams lay,
Through the long years her icy vigil kept.

As leaves turn into flame at the frost's touch,
So Richard's heart on coldness fed its fire,
And burned with surfeit of indifference.
All flavor and complexion of content
Went out of life; what served once served no more.