If the God of Israel had not visited her
Surely for sin, though she could not remember.
Thus one joy was. And then the Lord Naaman,
This wonder soiled, this pitiful great captain
Forbidden all that he had so proudly been--
To worship him, that was her other joy.
When the dusk came, and the city fell to silence,
And out of his poor banishment he would walk,
She followed him, knowing the very hour,
And all her heart was flooded through with pity,
Because she knew the leprosy left still
A Naaman untainted and lovely.
Then in her mind was the proud woman a loathing,
Who dared to waste a marvel such as this,
The right in the world's knowledge so to love.
O pitiful evil blasting so great a flesh,
Walling a spirit so governing itself
In spite of desolation. A maid's thought thus
Knew how the frames of mastery can suffer.

.....

Sometimes at night when not even lepers walked,
Solitary in the Syrian meadows she
Would wander in the old perplexity
That the moon makes of love. Never, she knew,
Could any adoration that she brought
Touch even the Lord Naaman's banishment,
The Naaman fallen from the time when even
Great ladies dare not speak the thing they felt.