"Men have been known Whom women made fifth husbands, more than that. Not my case, I'll say that, and if you face Reality, and put all passion love Where nature puts it by the side of love Which custom favors, you have only left The matter of the truth to grasp, believe, See clearly and accept: Do I swear true I love you, and since loving you am faithful, Cannot be otherwise, nor wish to be?" "Dear, listen and be fair. You did not love me When first I came to you. You did not ask, Because of love, a faithfulness; in truth You did not ask a faithfulness at all. But then and theretofore you treated me As woman to be won, a happiness To be achieved and put aside. Be fair, This was your mood. But if you loved me then, Or soon thereafter loved me, as I know, What should I do? I loved you, am a woman. At last behold your love, am lifted, thrilled. See what I thought was love before was nothing; Know I was never loved before you loved me; And know as well I never loved before; Know all the former raptures of my heart As buds in March closed hard and scentless, never The June before for my heart! O, my love, What should I do when this most priceless gift Was held up like a crown within your hands To place upon my brows--what should I do? Take you aside and say, here is the truth, Here's Gregory Wenner--what's the good of that? How had it benefited you or me, Increased your love, or founded it upon A surer rock than beauty? Hideous truth! Useless too often, childish in such case. You would have suffered, turned from me, and lost The rapture which I gave you, and if rapture Be not a prize, where in this world so much Of ugliness and agony prevails, I do not know our life."