Return--for thou hast one to care--
Return to thy dear mate.

II

"For trie, no joy of earth or sky,
No commune with the things I see,
But dreary converse of the eye
With worlds too grand to look at me--
No smile, no sigh!

"In vain I fall Upon my knees,
In vain I weep and sob for ever;
All other miseries have ease,
All other prayers have ruth--but never
Any for these.

"Are we endowed with heavenly breath,
And God's own form, that we should win
A proud priority of sin,
And teach creation death?

III

"Not, that is too profound for me,
Too lofty for a fallen thing.
More keenly do I feel than see;
Far liefer would I, than take wing,
Beneath it be.

"The night--the dark--will soon be here,
The gloom that doth my heart appal so I
How can I tell what may be near?
My faith is in the Lord--but also
He hath made fear.

"I quail, I cower, I strive to flee;
Though oft I watched without affright,
The stern magnificence of night,
When Adam was with me

IV

"My husband! Ah, I thought sometime
That I could do without him well,
Communing with the heaven at prime,
And in my womanhood could dwell
Calm and sublime.

"Declining, with a playful strife,
All thoughts below my own transcendence,
All common-sense of earth and life,
And counting it a poor dependence
To be his wife,

"But now I know, by trouble's test,
How little my poor strength can bear,
What folly wisdom is, whene'er
The grief is in the breast!

"The grief is in my breast, because
I have not always been as kind
As woman should, by nature's laws,
But showed sometimes a wilful mind,
Carping at straws.

"While he, perhaps, with larger eyne,
Was pleased, instead of vexed, at seeing
Some little petulance in mine,
And loved me all the more, for being;
Not too divine.

"Until the pride became a snare,
The reason a deceit, wherein
I dallied face to face with sinh
And made a mortal pair.

VI

"Dark sin, the deadly foe of love,
All bowers of bliss thou shalt infest,
Implanting thorns the flowers above,
And