Were heavenly!—so I thought till this
Unlooked for answer to the prayer
My heart was making with its might.
Thus challenged, caught in sudden snare,
Like two clouds meeting on a height,
And, pausing first in short strange lull,
Then bursting into awful storm,
Opposing feelings multiform,
Struggled in silence: and then full
Of our blind woman-wrath, broke forth
In stinging hail of sharp-edged ice,
As freezing as the polar north,
Yet maddening. O, the poor mean vice
We women have been taught to call
By virtue's name! the holy scorn
We feel for lovers left love-lorn
By our own coldness, or by the wall
Of other love 'twixt them and us!
The tempest past, I paused. He stood
Silent,—and yet "Ungenerous!"
Was hurled back, plainer than ere could
His lips have said it, by his eyes
Fire-flashing, and his pale, set face,
Beautiful, and unmarred by trace
Of aught save pain and pained surprise.
—I quailed at last before that gaze,
And even faintly owned my wrong:
I said I "spoke in such amaze
I could not choose words that belong
To such occasions." Here he smiled,
To cover one low, quick-drawn sigh:
"June eves disturb us differently,"
He said, at length; "and I, beguiled
By something in the air, did do
My Lady Maud unmeant offence;
