I am not two and twenty yet, and I am weary of living; O Loves, why
misuse me so? why set me on fire; for when I am gone, what will you
do? Doubtless, O Loves, as before you will play with your dice,
unheeding.


LXVIII
BROKEN VOWS
MELEAGER

Holy night, and thou, O lamp, you and none other we took to witness of
our vows; and we swore, he that he would love me, and I that I would
never leave him, and you kept witness between us. And now he says that
these vows are written in running water, O lamp, and thou seest him on
the bosom of another.


LXIX
DOUBTFUL DAWN
MELEAGER

O night, O wakeful longing in me for Heliodora, and eyes that sting
with tears in the creeping grey of dawn, do some remnants of affection
yet remain mine, and is her memorial kiss warm upon my cold picture?
has she tears for bedfellows, and does she clasp to her bosom and kiss
a deluding dream of me? or has she some other new love, a new
plaything? Never, O lamp, look thou on that, but be guardian of her
whom I gave to thy keeping.