III
Farewell, dear heart, enough of vain despairing!If I have erred I plead but one excuse—The jewel were a lesser joy in wearingThat cost a lesser agony to lose.
I had not bid for beautifuller hoursHad I not found the door so near unsealed,Nor hoped, had you not filled my arms with flowers,For that one flower that bloomed too far afield.
If I have wept, it was because, forsaken,I felt perhaps more poignantly than someThe blank eternity from which we wakenAnd all the blank eternity to come.
And I betrayed how sweet a thing and tender(In the regret with which my lip was curled)Seemed in its tragic, momentary splendorMy transit through the beauty of the world.