WHEREIN HE CHIDETH HIS WEAKNESS THAT RETURNED HER GLOVE

Fortune and Love their highest favour showered —
Her glove of gold and silk within my hand!
O bliss too great for hot blood to withstand!
O sheath in which her perfect fingers flowered!
That starry day, that day divinely dowered
In its first gift — how have the hopes it fanned
Turned now to sorrow, rage and barren sand,
Made memory misanthrope and hope a coward!
That on the princeliest prize put in man's keeping
I laid not fiercer grip, not sturdier stand
Offered against the angel and her band;
That my feet were not swifter in their leaping
To wreak some final vengeance on that hand —
This makes mine eyes the slave of their own weeping.