“WHAT DID IT MEAN?”

What did it mean that noontide, when

You bade me pluck the flower

Within the other woman's bower,

Whom I knew nought of then?

I thought the flower blushed deeplier — aye,

And as I drew its stalk to me

It seemed to breathe: “I am, I see,

Made use of in a human play.”

And while I plucked, upstarted sheer

As phantom from the pane thereby

A corpse-like countenance, with eye

That iced me by its baleful peer -

Silent, as from a bier...

When I came back your face had changed,

It was no face for me;

O did it speak of hearts estranged,

And deadly rivalry

In times before

I darked your door,

To seise me of

Mere second love,

Which still the haunting first deranged?