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| THE MOORLAND waste lay hushed in the dusk of the second day, | |
| Till a shuddering wind and shrill moaned up through the twilight gray; | |
| Like a wakening wraith it rose from the grave of the buried sun, | |
| And it whirled the sand by the tree—(there was never a tree but one—) | |
| But the tall bare bole stood fast, unswayed with the mad wind’s stress, | 5 |
| And a strong man hung thereon in his pain and his nakedness. | |
| His feet were nailed to the wood, and his arm strained over his head; | |
| ’T was the dusk of the second day, and yet was the man not dead. | |
| The cold blast lifted his hair, but his limbs were set and stark, | |
| And under their heavy brows his eyes stared into the dark: | 10 |
| He looked out over the waste, and his eyes were as coals of fire, | |
| Lit up with anguish and hate, and the flame of a strong desire. | |
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| The dark blood sprang from his wounds, the cold sweat stood on his face, | |
| For over the darkening plain came a rider riding apace. | |
| Her rags flapped loose in the wind; the last of the sunset glare | 15 |
| Flung dusky gold on her brow and her bosom broad and bare. | |
| She was haggard with want and woe, on a jaded steed astride, | |
| And still, as it staggered and strove, she smote on its heaving side, | |
| Till she came to the limbless tree where the tortured man hung high— | |
| A motionless crooked mass on a yellow streak in the sky. | 20 |
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| “’T is I—I am here, Antoine—I have found thee at last,” she said; | |
| “O the hours have been long, but long! and the minutes as drops of lead. | |
| Have they trapped thee, the full-fed flock, thou wert wont to harry and spoil? | |
| Do they laugh in their town secure o’er their measures of wine and oil? | |
| Ah God! that these hands might reach where they loll in their rich array; | 25 |
| Ah God, that they were but mine, all mine, to mangle and slay! | |
| How they shuddered and shrank, erewhile, at the sound of thy very name, | |
| When we lived as the gray wolves live, whom torture nor want may tame: | |
| And thou but a man! and still a scourge and a terror to men, | |
| Yet only my lover to me, my dear, in the rare days then. | 30 |
| O years of revel and love! ye are gone as the wind goes by, | |
| He is snared and shorn of his strength, and the anguish of hell have I— | |
| I am here, O love, at thy feet; I have ridden far and fast | |
| To gaze in thine eyes again, and to kiss thy lips at the last.” | |
| She rose to her feet and stood upright on the gaunt mare’s back, | 35 |
| And she pressed her full red lips to his that were strained and black. | |
| “Good-night, for the last time now—goodnight, beloved, and good-bye—” | |
| And his soul fled into the waste between a kiss and a sigh. | |
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