Claiming attention ere I can depart.

"Let us not waste these days; thine absent lord
Cannot return, thou know'st, before the snow
Has melted, and the almond fruits appear."
This time she answered, "Naught but thee I know!"

I too was young; I could have loved her well
When her soft eyes across the twilight burned;
But suddenly, around her amber neck,
The golden beads would sparkle as she turned.

_And I remembered_; swift mine eyelids fell
To hide the hate that festered in my soul,
Ever more deeply, with the rising fear
That Love might wrench Revenge from my control.

But when at last she, acquiescent, lay
In the sweet-scented shadow of the firs,
Lovely and broken, granting--asking--all,
It was _his_ eyes I met: not hers--not hers!

* * *

Three months I waited: all the village talked,
And ever anxiously she urged our flight.
Yet still I lingered, till her beauty paled,
And wearily she came to me at night.

Then, seeing Love, subservient to Revenge,