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Lived on her eyes, unspeaking what lacked not articulate speaking;
How in the room where he slept he met her cleaning and dusting,
How he unmeaningly talked of clothes for the washing,—of this thing,
That thing, and still as he spoke felt folded unto her, united,
Yea, without touch united, essentially, bodily with her,
Felt too that she too was feeling what he did,—howbeit they parted!
How by a kiss from her lips he had seemed made nobler and stronger,
Yea, for the first time in life a man complete and perfect,
So forth! much that before too was heard off—Howbeit they parted.
What had ended it all was singular, said he, very.
I was walking along some two miles from the cottage
Full of my dreamings—a girl went by in a party with others;
She had a cloak on, was stepping on quickly, for rain was beginning;
But as she passed, from the hood I saw her eyes look at me.
So quick a glance, so regardless I, that although I felt it,
You couldn't properly say our eyes met. She cast it, and left it:
It was three minutes perhaps ere I knew what it was. I had seen her
Somewhere before I am sure, but that wasn't it; not its import;
No, it had seemed to regard me with simple superior insight,
Quietly saying to itself—Yes, there he is still in his fancy,
Letting drop from him at random as things not worth considering
All the benefits gathered and put in his hands by fortune,
Loosing a hold which others, content and unambitious,
Trying down here to keep-up, know the value of better than he does.
Was it this? was it perhaps?—Yes there he is still in his fancy,
Doesn't yet see we have here just the things he is used-to elsewhere,
And that the things he likes here, elsewhere he wouldn't have looked at,
People here too are people, and not as fairy-land creatures;
He is in a trance, and possessed; I wonder how long to continue;
It is a shame and a pity—and no good likely to follow.
Something like this, but indeed I cannot the least define it.
Only, three hours thence I was off and away in the moorland,
Hiding myself from myself if I could; the arrow within me.
Katie was not in the house, thank God: I saw her in passing,
Saw her, unseen myself, with the pang of a cruel desertion,
Poignant enough; which however but made me walk the faster,
Like a terrible spur running into one's vitals, and through them,
Turning me all into pain and sending me off, I suppose like
One that is shot to the heart and leaps in the air in his dying.
What dear Katie thinks, God knows; poor child; may she only
