If once corrected by the thing I know, Had been unspoken; since she loves you well, Has leave to love you:—while for me, alas, If once or twice I let my heart escape This night, ... remember, where hearts slip and fall They break beside: we’re parting,—parting,—ah, You do not love, that you should surely know What that word means. Forgive, be tolerant; It had not been, but that I felt myself So safe in impuissance and despair, I could not hurt you though I tossed my arms And sighed my soul out. The most utter wretch Will choose his postures when he comes to die, However in the presence of a queen; And you’ll forgive me some unseemly spasms Which meant no more than dying. Do you think I had ever come here in my perfect mind, Unless I had come here, in my settled mind, Bound Marian’s, bound to keep the bond, and give My name, my house, my hand, the things I could, To Marian? For even _I_ could give as much; Even I, affronting her exalted soul By a supposition that she wanted these, Could act the husband’s coat and hat set up To creak i’ the wind and drive the world-crows off From pecking in her garden. Straw can fill A hole to keep out vermin. Now, at last, I own heaven’s angels round her life suffice To fight the rats of our society, Without this Romney: I can see it at last; And here is ended my pretension which The most pretended. Over-proud of course, Even so!—but not so stupid ... blind ... that I, Whom thus the great Taskmaster of the world Has set to meditate mistaken work, My dreary face against a dim blank wall Throughout man’s natural lifetime,—could pretend Or wish ... O love, I have loved you! O my soul, I have lost you!—but I swear by all yourself, And all you might have been to me these years, If that June-morning had not failed my hope,— I’m not so bestial, to regret that day This night,—this night, which still to you is fair; Nay, not so blind, Aurora. I attest Those stars above us, which I cannot see ...’