"He is a youth Of beauty and of promise, yet a soul Who riots in the sunlight, honey of life. And gets his wings gummed in the poisonous sweet. And Arielle one morning wakes to find A horror on her hands: her husband's found Dead in a house of ill-fame. She is calm Out of that rhythm, sense of beauty which Makes her a power, all her deeds a song. She lays the body under the dancing muses There in the wondrous library and flings A purple robe across it, kneels and lays Her sunny head against it, says a prayer. She had been constant, loyal even to dreams, To this wild youth, whose errant ways she knew. Now don't you see the contrast? I refrain From judging Elenor Murray, but I say One thing is beautiful and one is not. And Arielle is beautiful as a spirit, And Elenor is somewhat beautiful, But streaked and mottled, too. Say what you will Of freedom, nature, body's rights, no less Honor and constancy are beautiful, And truth most beautiful. And Arielle Could kneel beside the body of her dead, Who had neglected her so constantly, And say a prayer of thankfulness that she Had honored him throughout those seven years Of married life--she prayed so--why, she says That prayer was worth a thousand stolen raptures Offered her in the years of life between." "Now here she was at thirty Left to a mansion there in Madison. Her husband lived there; it was life, you know, For her to meet one of her neighborhood In Europe, though a stranger until then. And here is Arielle in her mansion, priestess Amid her treasures, beauties, for this man Has left her many thousands, and she lives Among her books and flowers, rides and walks, And frolics with her dogs, and entertains."...