When my love did what I would not, what I would not,
I could hear his merry voice upon the wind,
Crying, "e;Fairest, shut your eyes, for see you should not.
Love is blind!" ...
GOOD FRIDAY in my heart! Fear and affright!
My thoughts are the Disciples when they fled,
My words the words that priest and soldier said,
My deed the spear to desecrate the dead. ...
On alien ground, breathing an alien air,
A Roman stood, far from his ancient home,
And gazing, murmured,
'Ah, the hills are fair, But not the hills of Rome!' ...
The earth that made the rose,
She also is thy mother, and not I.
The flame wherewith thy maiden spirit glows
Was lighted at no hearth that I sit by. ...
I thought to do a deed of chivalry,
An act of worth, which haply in her sight
Who was my mistress should recorded be
And of the nations. And, when thus the fight
Faltered and men once bold with faces white
Turned this and that way in excuse to flee,
I only stood, and by the foeman's might
Was overborne and mangled cruelly.
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