He spoke in words part heard, in whispers part, Half-suffocated in the hoary fell And many-wintered fleece of throat and chin. But Vivien, gathering somewhat of his mood, And hearing “harlot” muttered twice or thrice, Leapt from her session on his lap, and stood Stiff as a viper frozen; loathsome sight, How from the rosy lips of life and love, Flashed the bare-grinning skeleton of death! White was her cheek; sharp breaths of anger puffed Her fairy nostril out; her hand half-clenched Went faltering sideways downward to her belt, And feeling; had she found a dagger there (For in a wink the false love turns to hate) She would have stabbed him; but she found it not: His eye was calm, and suddenly she took To bitter weeping like a beaten child, A long, long weeping, not consolable. Then her false voice made way, broken with sobs: “O crueller than was ever told in tale, Or sung in song! O vainly lavished love! O cruel, there was nothing wild or strange, Or seeming shameful—for what shame in love, So love be true, and not as yours is—nothing Poor Vivien had not done to win his trust Who called her what he called her—all her crime, All—all—the wish to prove him wholly hers.” She mused a little, and then clapt her hands Together with a wailing shriek, and said: “Stabbed through the heart’s affections to the heart! Seethed like the kid in its own mother’s milk! Killed with a word worse than a life of blows! I thought that he was gentle, being great: O God, that I had loved a smaller man! I should have found in him a greater heart. O, I, that flattering my true passion, saw The knights, the court, the King, dark in your light, Who loved to make men darker than they are, Because of that high pleasure which I had To seat you sole upon my pedestal Of worship—I am answered, and henceforth The course of life that seemed so flowery to me With you for guide and master, only you, Becomes the sea-cliff pathway broken short, And ending in a ruin—nothing left, But into some low cave to crawl, and there, If the wolf spare me, weep my life away, Killed with inutterable unkindliness.”