| |
| LONELY and cold and fierce I keep my way, | |
| Scourge of the lands, companioned by the storm, | |
| Tossing to heaven my frontlet, wild and gray, | |
| Mateless, yet conscious ever of a warm | |
| And brooding presence close to mine all day. | 5 |
| |
| What is this alien thing, so near, so far, | |
| Close to my life always, but blending never,— | |
| Hemmed in by walls whose crystal gates unbar | |
| Not at the instance of my strong endeavor | |
| To pierce the stronghold where their secrets are? | 10 |
| |
| Buoyant, impalpable, relentless, thin, | |
| Rise the clear, mocking walls. I strive in vain | |
| To reach the pulsing heart that beats within, | |
| Or, with persistence of a cold disdain, | |
| To quell the gladness which I may not win. | 15 |
| |
| Forever sundered and forever one, | |
| Linked by a bond whose spell I may not guess, | |
| Our hostile yet embracing currents run; | |
| Such wedlock lonelier is than loneliness. | |
| Baffled, withheld, I clasp the bride I shun. | 20 |
| |
| Yet even in my wrath a wild regret | |
| Mingles; a bitterness of jealous strife | |
| Tinges my fury as I foam and fret | |
| Against the borders of that calmer life, | |
| Beside whose course my wrathful course is set. | 25 |
| |
| But all my anger, all my pain and woe, | |
| Are vain to daunt her gladness; all the while | |
| She goes rejoicing, and I do not know, | |
| Catching the soft irradiance of her smile, | |
| If I am most her lover or her foe. | 30 |
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