False! Good God, I am dreaming! No, no, it never can be-- You who are so true in seeming, You, false to your vows and me? My wife and my fair boy’s mother The star of my life--my queen-- To yield herself to another Like some light Magdalene! Proofs! what are proofs--I defy them! They never can shake my trust; If you look in my face and deny them I will trample them into the dust. For whenever I read of the glory Of the realms of Paradise, I sought for the truth of the story And found it in your sweet eyes. Why, you are the shy young creature I wooed in her maiden grace; There was purity in each feature, And my heaven I found in your face And, “not only married but mated,” I would say in my pride and joy; And our hopes were all consummated When the angels gave us our boy. Now you could not blot that beginning So beautiful, pure and true, With a record of wicked sinning As a common woman might do. Look up in your old frank fashion, With your smile so free from art; And say that no guilty passion Has ever crept into your heart. How pallid you are, and you tremble! You are hiding your face from view! “Tho’ a sinner, you cannot dissemble”-- My God! then the tale is true? True and the sun above us Shines on in the summer skies? And men say the angels love us, And that God is good and wise. Yet he lets a wanton thing like you Ruin my home and my name! Get out of my sight ere I strike you Dead in your shameless shame! No, no, I was wild, I was brutal; I would not take your life, For the efforts of death would be futile To wipe out the sin of a wife. Wife--why, that word has seemed sainted, I uttered it like a prayer. And now to think it is tainted-- Christ! how much we can bear! “Slay you!” my boy’s stained mother-- Nay, that would not punish, or save; A soul that has outraged another Finds no sudden peace in the grave. I will leave you here to _remember_ The Eden that was your own, While on toward my life’s December I walk in the dark alone. THE PHANTOM BALL. You remember the hall on the corner? To-night as I walked down street I heard the sound of music, And the rhythmic beat and beat, In time to the pulsing measure Of lightly tripping feet. And I turned and entered the doorway-- It was years since I had been there-- Years, and life seemed altered: Pleasure had changed to care. But again I was hearing the music And watching the dancers fair. And then, as I stood and listened, The music lost its glee; And instead of the merry waltzers There were ghosts of the Used-to-be-- Ghosts of the pleasure-seekers Who once had danced with me.