[from Collected Works, T.E.Brown]

HOTWELLS

Is it her face that looks from forth the glare
Of those dull stony eyes?
Her face ! that used to light with meek surprise,
If I but said that she was fair!

Can it have come to this, since at the gate
Her lips between the bars
Fluttered irresolute to mine, for it was late
Beneath the misty stars!

It was our last farewell, our last farewell—
O heaven above!
And now she is a fearful thing of Hell—
My dove ! my dove!
A hollow thing carved rigid on the shell
Of her that was my love!

Yet, if the soul remain,
There crouched and dumb behind the obdurate mask,
This would I ask :—
Kill her, O God ! that so, the flesh being slain,
Her soul my soul may be again.