Well, then he heard that Elenor Murray died, And told me that her grandmother, that woman Known for her queerness and her lively soul To eighty years and more, was grandmother To his father, and this Elenor Murray cousin To his father. There you have it, he exclaimed, She killed herself, and I know why, he said She loved someone. This love is in our blood, And overflows, or spurts between the logs You dam it with, or fully stayed grows green With summer scum, breeds frogs and spotted snakes. He was a study and I studied him. I'd sit beside his cell and read some words From his confession, ask why did you this? His crime was monstrous, but he won me over. I wished to help the boy, for boy he was Just nineteen, and I pitied him. At last His story seemed as clear as when you see The truth behind poor words that say as much As words can say--you see, you get the truth And know it, even if you never pass The truth to others. Lord! This girl he killed Knew not the power she played with. Why she sat Like a child upon the asp's nest picking flowers. Or as a child will pet a mad dog. Look You come into my life, what do you bring? Why, everything that made your life, all pains, All raptures, disappointments, wisdom learned You bring to me. But do you show them, no! You hide them maybe, some of them, and leave Myself to learn you by the hardest means, And bing! A something in you, or in me, Out of a past explodes, or better still Extends a claw from out the buttoned coat And rips a face. So this poor girl was killed, And by an innocent coquetry evoked The claw that tore her breast away. One day As I passed by his cell I stopped and sat. What was the first thing entering in your mind From which you trace your act? And he said: "Well Almost from the beginning all my mind Was on her from the moment I awaked Until I slept, and often I awoke At two or three o'clock with thoughts of her. And through the day I thought of nothing else; Sometimes I could not eat. At school my thought Stretched out of me to her, could not be pulled Back to the lesson. I could read a page As it were Greek, not understand a word. But just the moment I was with her then My soul re-entered me, I was at peace, And happy, oh so happy! In the days When we were separated my unrest Took this form: that I must be with her, or If that could not be, then some other place Was better than the place I was--I strained, Lived in a constant strain, found no content With anything or place, could find no peace Except with her."