"But just suppose I gave you rapture, beauty--you concede I gave you these, that's why you suffer so: You choose to think them spurious since you found I knew this Gregory Wenner, are they so? They are as real in spite of Gregory Wenner As if my lips had been a cradled child's. But just suppose, as I began to say, You never had discovered Gregory Wenner, And had the rapture, beauty which you had, How stands the case? Was I not justified In hiding Gregory Wenner to preserve The beauty and the rapture which you craved? Dear, it was love of beauty which impelled What you have called deceit, it was my woman's Passionate hope to give the man she loved The beauty which he saw in her that inspired My acting, as you phrase it, an elaborate Hypocrisy, an ugly word from you!... But listen, dear, how spirit works in love: When you beheld me pure, I would be pure; As virginal, I would be virginal; As innocent, I would be innocent; As truthful, constant, so I would be these Though to be truthful, constant when I loved you Came to me like my breath, as natural. So I would be all things to you for love, Fill full your dreams, your vision of my soul For now and future days, but make myself In days before I knew you what you thought, Believed and cherished. Hence if you combine The thought that what I was did not concern you, With fear that if you knew, your heart would change; And with these join that passionate zeal of love To be your lover, wholly beautiful, You have the exposition of my soul In its elaborate deceit,--your words." "Some fifty years ago a man and woman Are talking in a room, say certain things, We were not there! We two are with each other Somewhere, and fifty years from now, we two Will look to after souls who were not there Like figures in a crystal globe; I mean To lift to light the wounds of brooding love, And show you that the world contains events Of which we live in ignorance, if we know They hurt us with their mystery, coming near In our soul's cycle, somehow. But the dead, And what they lived, what are they?--what the things Of our dead selves to selves who are alive, And live the hour that's given us?" "What's your past To me, beloved, if your soul and body Are mine to-day, not only mine, but made By living more my own, more rich for me, More truly harmonized with me? Believe me You are my highest hope made real at last, The climax of my love life, I accept Whatever passed in rooms in years gone by; Whatever contacts, raptures, pains or hopes As schooling of your soul to make it precious, And for my worship, my advancement, kneel And thank the God of mysteries and wisdom Who made you for me, let me find you, love you!"