| Hunt and Lee, comps. The Book of the Sonnet. 1867. | | | | II. “I love thee yet!” | | By Tranquilla |
| | | I LOVE thee yet! for nature’s ties are stronger | |
| Than I had dreamed! I strove to break the chain, | |
| Feeling I had no right to love thee longer; | |
| But, in its greatest agony and pain, | |
| My heart turned to thee, though I scorned and hated | 5 |
| Thy weakness and thy sin. Although, to me, | |
| Thou wert the very thing I most abhorred, | |
| In spite of all my wrath, my agony, | |
| My heart turned to thee, and I could have wept | |
| Hot tears upon thy bosom for my wrongs. | 10 |
| Within thy circling arms I could have slept; | |
| For slumber had been banished from me long. | |
| I do forgive thee,—yet the world I ’d give | |
| Could I forget, even as I forgive. | | | | |
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