Page:The Poems and Prose remains of Arthur Hugh Clough, volume 2 (1869).djvu/447

Ten pounds he sent, for what he did not know;
And 'In no case,' he said, 'let Christian go.'
He in three days would come, and for his life
Would claim her and declare her as his wife.
 Swift the night-mail conveyed his missive on;
He followed in three days, and found them gone.
All three had sailed: he looked as though he dreamed
The money-order had been cashed, it seemed.

 The Clergyman, 'This story is mere pain,'
Exclaimed, 'for if the women don't sustain
The moral standard, all we do is vain.'
 'But what we want,' the Yankee said, 'to know,
Is if the girl went willingly or no.
Sufficient motive though one does not see,
'Tis clear the grocer used some trickery.'

 He judged himself, so strong the clinging in
This kind of people is to kith and kin;
For if they went and she remained behind,
No one she had, if him she failed to find.
Alas, this lawless loving was the cause,
She did not dare to think how dear she was.
Justly his guilty tardiness he curst,
He should have owned her when he left her first.
And something added how upon the sea,
She perilled, too, a life that was to be;
A child that, born in far Australia, there
Would have no father and no father's care.
So to the South a lonely man returned,
For other scenes and busier life he burned,—
College he left and settled soon in town,
Wrote in the journals, gained a swift renown.