We woke together, heard together, thrilled With speechless rapture! Were your spirit's plight As mine is with this vision, had I willed To torture you with absence? Would I save Your spirit if its anguish could be stilled Only among the worms that haunt the grave? My dream goes on a little: Day by day, These seven days we lived together, gave Our spirits to each other. With dismay You watched my hour's departure. On you crept Light shadows after moments sunny, gay. But when the hour was come, you sat and wept, And said to me: "I hear the rattling clods Upon the coffin of our love." You stepped And stood beside the casement, said "A god's Sarcophagus this room will be as soon As you have gone, and mine shall be the rod's Bitterness of memory both night and noon Amid the silence of this palace." So I spoke and said, "If you would have the boon-- O Leonora, do I live to know This hope too passionate made consummate?-- Yet if it be I shall return, nor go But to return to you, and make our fate Bound fast for life." How happy was your smile, Your laughter soon,--and then from door to gate I passed and left you, to be gone awhile Around Ferrara. In three days, it seemed, I came again, and as I walked each mile Counting to self--my feet lagged as I dreamed-- And said ten miles, nine miles, eight miles, at last One mile, so many furlongs, then I dreamed Your reading lamps were lighted for me, cast Their yellow beams upon the mid-night air. But oh my heart which stopped and stood aghast To see the lamp go out and note the glare Of blue light set behind the Dante mask! Who wore my robe of purple false and fair? Who drank your precious vintage from the flask Roman and golden whence I drank so late? Who held you in his arms and thus could ask? Receive your love? Mother of God! What fate Was mine beneath the darkness of that sky, There at your door who could not leave or wait, And heard the bird of midnight's desolate cry? And saw at last the blue light quenched, and saw A taper lighted in my chamber--why This treachery, Leonora? Why withdraw The love you gave, or eviler, lead me here, O sorceress, before whom heaven's law Breaks and is impotent--whose eyes no tear Of penitence shall know, whose spirit fares Free, without consequence, as a child could sear Its fellow's hands with flame, or unawares, Or with premeditation, and then laugh and turn Upon its play. For you, light heart, no snares Or traps of conscience wait, who thus could spurn A love invited.