"Before this quarrel we had been engaged And at this evening's end I brought it up: 'What shall we do? Are you engaged to me? Will you renew it?' And she said to me: 'We still are young, it's better to be free. Let's play and dance. Be gay, for if you will I'll go with you, but when you're gloomy, dear, You are not company for a girl.'" "Dear me! Here was I five feet nine, and could have crushed Her little body with my giant arms. And yet in strength that counts, the mind that moves The body, but much more can move itself, And other minds, she was a spirit power, And I but just a derrick slowly swung By an engine smaller, noisy with its chug, And cloudy with its smoke bituminous. That night, however, she engaged to go To dance with me a week hence. But meanwhile The hellish thing comes, on the morning after. Thus chum of mine, who testified, John Luce Came to me with the story that this man That Gertrude danced with, told him--O my God-- That Gertrude hinted she would come across, Give him the final bliss. That was the proof They brought out in the trial, as you know. The fellow said it, damn him--whether she Made such a promise, who knows? Would to God I knew before you hang me. There I stood And heard this story, felt my arteries Lock as you'd let canal gates down, my heart Beat for deliverance from the bolted streams. That night I could not sleep, but found a book, Just think of this for fate! Under my eyes There comes an ancient story out of Egypt: Thyamis fearing he would die and lose The lovely Chariclea, strikes her dead, Then kills himself, some thousands of years ago. It's all forgotten now, I say to self, Who cares, what matters it, the thing was done And served its end. The story stuck with me. But the next night and the next night I stole out To spy on Gertrude, by the path in the grass Lay for long hours. And on the third night saw At half-past eight or nine this fellow come And take her walking in the darkness--where? I could have touched them as they walked the path, But could not follow for the moon which rose. Besides I lost them." "Well, the time approached Of the dance, and still I brooded, then resolved. My hatred now was level with the cauldron, With bubbles crackling. So the spade I took, Hidden beneath the seat may show forethought, They caught the jury with that argument, And forethought does it show, but who made me To have such forethought?" "Then I called for her And took her to the dance. I was most gay, Because the load was lifted from my mind, And I had found relief. And so we danced. And she danced with this fellow. I was calm, Believed somehow he had not had her yet. And if his knee touched hers--why let it go. Nothing beyond shall happen, even this Shall not be any more."