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FRUITION.
111
In my youth I was vainer, as though only I had a message,
And the error men saw would be vanquished the moment they saw it.
I was young and so happy, my child, that I revelled in sadness,
And men said of this painter, " He gives us the blackness of darkness."
But the shadows came on me; your mother, your grandmother, faded,
And the angel shone through her more brightly, and burnt to my soul.
And I painted her, feature by feature, my love, in her dying !
And I thought, Was I human or demon, to study her so ?
And she died as the picture was finished ; my darling, my darling !
But from out of the distance came murmurings, mellowed by time :
