Still on the tower stood the vane,
— A black yew gloomed the stagnant air;
I peered athwart the chancel pane,
— And saw the altar cold and bare.
A clog of lead was round my feet,
— A band of pain across my brow;
" Cold altar, heaven and earth shall meet
— Before you hear my marriage vow. "

I turned and hummed a bitter song
— That mocked the wholesome human heart,
And then we met in wrath and wrong,
— We met, but only meant to part.
Full cold my greeting was and dry;
— She faintly smiled, she hardly moved;
I saw, with half-unconscious eye,
— She wore the colors I approved.

She took the little ivory chest,
— With half a sigh she turned the key,
Then raised her head with lips compressed,
— And gave my letters back to me;
And gave the trinkets and the rings,
— My gifts, when gifts of mine could please.
As looks a father on the things
— Of his dead son, I looked on these.

She told me all her friends had said;
— I raged against the public liar.
She talked as if her love were dead;
— But in my words were seeds of fire.
" No more of love, your sex is known;
— I never will be twice deceived.
Henceforth I trust the man alone;
— The woman cannot be believed.

" Through slander, meanest spawn of hell, —
— And woman's slander is the worst, —
And you, whom once I loved so well,
— Through you my life will be accursed. "
I spoke with heart and heat and force,
— I shook her breast with vague alarms —
Like torrents from a mountain source
— We rushed into each other's arms.

We parted; sweetly gleamed the stars,
— And sweet the vapor-braided blue;
Low breezes fanned the belfry bars,
— As homeward by the church I drew.
The very graves appeared to smile,
— So fresh they rose in shadowed swells;
" Dark porch, " I said, " and silent aisle,
— There comes a sound of marriage bells. "