Page:An epic of women and other poems (IA epicofwomenother00osha).pdf/91

Was on his skin, coarse-coloured as a bark;
  Yea, he was shorn of beauty from the birth;
But strong, and of a mighty soul to work
  With Fate and all the iron of the earth.

Thereto he had a heart even to love
  That woman whom God gave him; and his part
Of fate had been quite blest—ay, sweet enough,
  Having her beautiful and whole of heart.

But when he knew she was quite false and vain,
  He slew her not because she was so fair;
Yea, spite of all the rest, had rather slain
  Himself, than lost the looking on her hair.

For then the labouring days had seemed to last
  Longer than ever: all had been too sore,
Not to be borne as erst,—the world so vast—
  Vaster than ever it had seemed before!

But, when he knew it, heavily the ire—
  Darkly the sorrow of it wrought on him;
The hollows of his eyes were filled with fire;
  The fruitless sweat was dried upon each limb: