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pring last year. BEWITCHED (_On a Devon Moor_) Why do I babble of bitter chills-- And icy trees--and snowy fallows? Why do I shudder as twilight spills A ghostly gray and the bent moon sallows The moor with her wicked flame? Why do the gibbering croons of the hag In her hut by the wood Go muttering, muttering in my blood-- Till the hoot of an owl On the snag of a tomb Breaks out of the gloom Like the wail of a witch's name? Ugh, it is drawing my feet away-- The road's gone! the moonlet's sunken! What shall I do if it comes to fray With fiends invisible, wild and drunken-- Fiends on a churchless fell! Ha, is it cracking of ice in the bog That is clutching my throat, Or devils gnawing the widow's shoat? By the Cross of the Christ, There's a fog that is black As--U-r-r!--at my back!-- They are dragging me ... down to ... hell! QUARREL And is it so That two who stand Heart closed in heart, Hand knit to hand, Can let love go Asunder, so? Speak hard--not understand? That one asks much? One gives too small? And so is lost, It may be--All? That for a touch Of pride we such A heaven can let fall? No!--But to Fate Say with me, "Go: Death may bring dross But this I know; _Love can abate Life's harshest hate, So loving I bend low._" OF THE FLESH (_At Monte Carlo_) We met upon the street; Quick passion sprung into the eye of each; No dilettante heat! For though I do not love her now, beseech You, signor, do you think We could face so in any spot, nor fear To leap the fatal brink Into each other's arms--that, once a-near, Hell's self could make us shrink? No, no! Such love as ours Stabbed peace heart-deep and burnt the flesh to mad. It scorned the simple powers Of sympathy and mild repose, and had One thirst alone--to hold Each other mouth to still unsated mouth Until, perchance, the cold And damp of death should end some night its drouth. But only day would come, Unlock our arms and show us duty's eye Calm, pale, and sternly dumb. And so we'd swear never to kiss or sigh Again--for well we knew God grants such boons only to man and wife. But night distilled the dew Of loneliness--and so, once more, that life. And how was the spell burst? Each long embrace seemed sw
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