THE VOW OF THE PEACOCK.
93
Like statues placed in that lone nook,
To mock it with the human look;
And paint upon the moonlit air
The ghastly aspect of despair!
There was heart-broken silence first,
Then passionate those accents burst,
Whose utter agony of woe,
Once—only once—the heart can know!
She bade him go—for true she read
The beating of that noble heart;
Better it rested with the dead,
Than see its stainless life depart.
She bade him go—although the word
Was scarcely from her pale lip heard—
One desperate prayer, one wild caress,
And she is left in loneliness.
