Lays and Legends (Second Series)

THE TEMPTATION

Let me go! I cannot be
All you think me, pure and true:
Those brave jewel-names crown you,
They were trampled down by me.

Horrid ghosts rise up between
You and me; I dare not pass!
What might be is dead; what was
Is its poison, O my Queen!

I should wither up your life,
Blacken, blight its maiden flower;
You would live to curse the hour
When you made yourself my wife.

Yet, your hand held out, your eyes
Pleading, longing, brimmed with tears …
I have lived in hell for years:
Do not show me Paradise.

Lest I answer: "Take me, then!
Take me, save me if you can,
Worse than any other man,
Loving more than other men."