No More Learning

LXXIX.

"Have you any answer, madam? If my spirit were less earthly,
If its instrument were gifted with a better silver string,
I would kneel down where I stand, and say--Behold me! I am worthy
Of thy loving, for I love thee. I am worthy as a king.

LXXX.

"As it is--your ermined pride, I swear, shall feel this stain upon her,
That _I_, poor, weak, tost with passion, scorned by me and you again,
Love you, madam, dare to love you, to my grief and your dishonour,
To my endless desolation, and your impotent disdain! "

LXXXI.

More mad words like these--mere madness! friend, I need not write them
fuller,
For I hear my hot soul dropping on the lines in showers of tears.
Oh, a woman! friend, a woman! why, a beast had scarce been duller
Than roar bestial loud complaints against the shining of the spheres.

LXXXII.

But at last there came a pause.
I stood all vibrating with thunder
Which my soul had used. The silence drew her face up like a call.
Could you guess what word she uttered? She looked up, as if in wonder,
With tears beaded on her lashes, and said--"Bertram! "--It was all.

LXXXIII.

If she had cursed me, and she might have, or if even, with queenly
bearing
Which at need is used by women, she had risen up and said,
"Sir, you are my guest, and therefore I have given you a full hearing:
Now, beseech you, choose a name exacting somewhat less, instead! "--

LXXXIV.

I had borne it: but that "Bertram"--why, it lies there on the paper
A mere word, without her accent, and you cannot judge the weight
Of the calm which crushed my passion: I seemed drowning in a vapour;
And her gentleness destroyed me whom her scorn made desolate.

LXXXV.

So, struck backward and exhausted by that inward flow of passion
Which had rushed on, sparing nothing, into forms of abstract truth,
By a logic agonizing through unseemly demonstration,
And by youth's own anguish turning grimly grey the hairs of youth,--

LXXXVI.

By the sense accursed and instant, that if even I spake wisely
I spake basely--using truth, if what I spake indeed was true,
To avenge wrong on a woman--_her_, who sate there weighing nicely
A poor manhood's worth, found guilty of such deeds as I could do! --

LXXXVII.

By such wrong and woe exhausted--what I suffered and occasioned,--
As a wild horse through a city runs with lightning in his eyes,
And then dashing at a church's cold and passive wall, impassioned,
Strikes the death into his burning brain, and blindly drops and dies--

LXXXVIII.

So I fell, struck down before her--do you blame me, friend, for
weakness?
'T was my strength of passion slew me!