Why even when she kissed me, and her tears were on my brow, As she murmured, "George, forgive me--I must go to mother now!" Such hate there was within me that I answered not at all, But calm, and cold and cruel, I smiled throughout it all. But a shadow in the doorway caught my eye, and then the face Full of innocence and sunshine of little baby Grace. And I snatched her up and kissed her, and I softened through and through For a minute when she told me "I must kiss her muvver too." I remember, at the starting, how I tried to freeze again As I watched them slowly driving down the little crooked lane-- When Annie shouted something that ended in a cry, And how I tried to whistle and it fizzled in a sigh. I remember running after, with a glimmer in my sight-- Pretending I'd discovered that the traces wasn't right; And the last that I remember, as they disappeared from view, Was little Grace a-calling, "I see papa! Howdy-do!" And left alone to ponder, I again took up my hate For the old man who would chuckle that I was desolate; And I mouthed my wrongs in mutters till my pride called up the pain His last insult had given me--until I smiled again Till the wild beast in my nature was raging in the den-- With no one now to quell it, and I wrote a letter then Full of hissing things, and heated with so hot a heat of hate That my pen flashed out black lightning at a most terrific rate. I wrote that "she had wronged me when she went away from me-- Though to see her dying mother 'twas her father's victory, And a woman that could waver when her husband's pride was rent Was no longer worthy of it." And I shut the house and went. To tell of my long exile would be of little good-- Though I couldn't half-way tell it, and I wouldn't if I could! I could tell of California--of a wild and vicious life; Of trackless plains, and mountains, and the Indian's scalping-knife. I could tell of gloomy forests howling wild with threats of death; I could tell of fiery deserts that have scorched me with their breath; I could tell of wretched outcasts by the hundreds, great and small, And could claim the nasty honor of the greatest of them all. I could tell of toil and hardship; and of sickness and disease, And hollow-eyed starvation, but I tell you, friend, that these Are trifles in comparison with what a fellow feels With that bloodhound, Remorsefulness, forever at his heels. I remember--worn and weary of the long, long years of care, When the frost of time was making early harvest of my hair-- I remember, wrecked and hopeless of a rest beneath the sky, My resolve to quit the country, and to seek the East, and die. I remember my long journey, like a dull, oppressive dream, Across the empty prairies till I caught the distant gleam Of a city in the beauty of its broad and shining stream On whose bosom, flocked together, float the mighty swans of steam.