o break!
Something wakens within me, and warms to the beam:
Is it hope that awakens? or do I but dream?
I know not. It may be, perchance, the first spark
Of a new light within me to solace the dark
Unto which I return; or perchance it may be
The last spark of fires half extinguish'd in me.
I know not. Thou goest thy way: I my own;
For good or for evil, I know not. Alone
This I know; we are parting. I wish'd to say more,
But no matter! 'twill pass. All between us is o'er.
Forget the wild words of to-night. 'Twas the pain
For long years hoarded up, that rush'd from me again.
I was unjust: forgive me. Spare now to reprove
Other words, other deeds. It was madness, not love,
That you thwarted this night. What is done is now done.
Death remains to avenge it, or life to atone.
I was madden'd, delirious! I saw you return
To him--not to me; and I felt my heart burn
With a fierce thirst for vengeance--and thus... let it pass!
Long thoughts these, and so brief the moments, alas!
Thou goest thy way, and I mine. I suppose
'Tis to meet nevermore. Is it not so? Who knows,
Or who heeds, where the exile from Paradise flies?
Or what altars of his in the desert may rise?
Is it not so, Lucile? Well, well! Thus then we part
Once again, soul from soul, as before heart from heart!"
XIII.
And again clearer far than the chime of a bell,
That voice on his sense softly, soothingly fell.
"Our two paths must part us, Eugene; for my own
Seems no more through that world in which henceforth alone
You must work out (as now I believe that you will)
The hope which you speak of. That work I shall still
(If I live) watch and welcome, and bless far away.
Doubt not this. But mistake not the thought, if I say
That the great moral combat between human life
And each human soul must be single. The strife
None can share, though by all its results may be known.
When the soul arms for battle, she goes forth alone.
I say not, indeed, we shall meet nevermore,
For I know not. But meet, as we have met of yore,
I know that we cannot. Perchance we may meet
By the death-bed, the tomb, in the crowd, in the street,
Or in solitude even, but never again
Shall we meet from henceforth as we have met, Eugene.
For we
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