"And then--ah, I was comely then! I bore no load upon my back, I heard no hounds upon my track, But stood the tallest of tall men. "Her father's and her mother's shrine, This church amid the orange wood, So near and so secure it stood, It seemed to beckon as a sign. "Its white cross seemed to beckon me: My heart was strong, and it was mine To throw myself upon my knee, To beg to lead her to this shrine. "She did consent. Through lanes of light I led through that church-door that night-- Let fall your hand! Take back your face And stand,--stand patient in your place! "She loved me; and she loves me still. Yea, she clung close to me that hour As honey-bee to honey-flower,-- And still is mine, through good or ill. "The priest stood there. He spake the prayer; He made the holy, mystic sign. And she was mine, was wholly mine,-- Is mine this moment I will swear! "Then days, then nights, of vast delight,-- Then came a doubtful, later day; The faithful priest, now far away, Watched with the dying in the fight: "The priest amid the dying, dead, Kept duty on the battle-field,-- That midnight marriage unrevealed Kept strange thoughts running through my head. "At last a stray ball struck the priest: This vestibule his chancel was. And now none lived to speak her cause, Record, or champion her the least. "Hear me! I had been bred to hate All priests, their mummeries and all. Ah, it was fate,--ah, it was fate That all things tempted me to fall! "And then the rattling songs we sang Those nights when rudely revelling,-- The songs that only soldiers sing,-- Until the very tent-poles rang! "What is the rhyme that rhymers say Of maidens born to be betrayed By epaulettes and shining blade, While soldiers love and ride away? "And then my comrades spake her name Half taunting, with a touch of shame; Taught me to hold that lily-flower As some light pastime of the hour. "And then the ruin in the land, The death, dismay, the lawlessness! Men gathered gold on every hand,-- Heaped gold: and why should I do less? "The cry for gold was in the air, For Creole gold, for precious things; The sword kept prodding here and there Through bolts and sacred fastenings. "'Get gold! get gold!' This was the cry. And I loved gold. What else could I Or you, or any earnest one Born in this getting age have done? "With this one lesson taught from youth, And ever taught us, to get gold,-- To get and hold, and ever hold,-- What else could I have done, forsooth? "She, seeing how I sought for gold,-- This girl, my wife, one late night told Of treasures hidden close at hand, In her dead father's mellow land: "Of gold she helped her brothers hide Beneath a broad banana tree, The day the two in battle died,-- The night she dying fled to me.