|
Page 42
"Ah well" she said "it
seems to me that now
Using his name, using my husband's name,
Wearing his very ring that owns me his,
Letting my honest friends here talk of him
Or not talk as it lists them, I endure
A penance that may punish me enough,
A penance that may punish me for you
As I would fain be punished. Oh, sometimes
I hug the shame because it is so great."
He said "Mad Lota, Evelyn once said
That you loved sorrow as the petrel loves
The storm-winds and the waves; you laughed at that,
But now I feel the meaning of the thought.
Oh! you have grief enough, why will you try
To swell its burden on you? You build up
A sorrow idol, and then lay yourself
Before its car to have it shatter you.
And in this story - let me say so much
For the man who is my fatalest bane on earth -
I see a great crime with the least of shame
That ever crime could have. Our English blood
Runs cooler in the veins, but yet, I think,
We've many a steady honest gentleman
Whose deadliest vengeance is a going to law
Would rub his hands 'Now that's the man for me,
A fine bold madcap standing for his rights
With a magnificent lawlessness.' There's yet,
With all our smugness, somewhere in most minds
A corner where the natural savage lurks:
In spite of Law and Gospel we've a thrill
For redhand justice bursting through its dams
Like a swelled reckless river from the hills
That rushes to its goal forbiddenly.
Oh Lota, if I loathe or scorn this man,
It is for his foul former wrongs to you
Which are - Child, I'll not talk of them. Go on:
You say he wished to die, yet did not die;
I should have thought - "
Next ...
|
