THE WOMAN

With her fair face she made my heaven,

Beneath whose stars and moon and sun

I worshiped, praying, having striven,

For wealth through which she might be won.

And yet she had no soul: A woman

As fair and cruel as a god;

Who played with hearts as nothing human,

And tossed them by and on them trod.

She killed a soul; she did it nightly;

Luring it forth from peace and prayer,

To strangle it, and laughing lightly,

Cast it into the gutter there.

And yet, not for a purer vision

Would I exchange; or Paradise

Possess instead of Hell, my prison,

Where burns the passion of her eyes.