"Fears--never doubts, for true love never doubts."
Then Alfred paus'd a space, as one who holds
A white doe by the throat and searches for
The blade to slay her. "This your answer still--
"You doubt not--doubt not this far love of yours,
"Tho' sworn a false young recreant, Kate, by me?"
"He is as true as I am," Katie said;
"And did I seek for stronger simile,
"I could not find such in the universe!"
"And were he dead? what, Katie, were he dead--
"A handful of brown dust, a flame blown out--
"What then would love be strongly, true to--Naught?"
"Still, true to love my love would be," she said,
And faintly smiling, pointed to the stars.
"O fool!" said Alfred, stirr'd--as craters rock
"To their own throes--and over his pale lips
Roll'd flaming stone, his molten heart. "Then, fool--
"Be true to what thou wilt--for he is dead.
"And there have grown this gilded summer past
"Grasses and buds from his unburied flesh.
"I saw him dead. I heard his last, loud cry:
"'O Kate!' ring thro' the woods; in truth I did."
She half-raised up a piteous, pleading hand,
Then fell along the mosses at his feet.
"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