No More Learning

_But why_?
_Do thou agree_,
_And--she shalt cease to be_. '

VIII

"How I held back, how love supreme
Involved me madly in his scheme
Why should I say? . . . I wrote assent
(You found it hid) to his intent . . .
She--_died_ . . . But he
Came not to wed with me.

IX

"O shrink not, Love! --Had these eyes seen
But once thine own, such had not been!
But we were strangers . . . Thus the plot
Cleared passion's path. --Why came he not
To wed with me? . . .
He wived the gibbet-tree. "

X

--Under that oak of heretofore
Sat Sweetheart mine with me no more:
By many a Fiord, and Strom, and Fleuve
Have I since wandered . . . Soon, for love,
Distraught went she--
'Twas said for love of me.



HER LATE HUSBAND
(KING'S-HINTOCK, 182-. )


"No--not where I shall make my own;
But dig his grave just by
The woman's with the initialed stone--
As near as he can lie--
After whose death he seemed to ail,
Though none considered why.

"And when I also claim a nook,
And your feet tread me in,
Bestow me, under my old name,
Among my kith and kin,
That strangers gazing may not dream
I did a husband win.