Chapter XLI

Then was it, as I turn’d about, by chance,
I came on Elbert; and my whole soul rose
To dash at him its briny bitterness.
Is he here, thought I,—he to whom, alas,
The very potion, poisoning all my hopes,
Will prove the sparkling nectar of success,
And bring good cheer, though bringing death to me?—
Then let him share it!—Still, my wiser pride
The purpose check’d, and balancing rash hate
With hateful prudence, closed his opening smile
But with a frown that would not welcome him.

With any truth to self, so argued I,
I could do nothing else; nor could abide
A town that held him. So I left the town;
And so these friends of mine, so prized of old,
And I had parted,—not as friends would part,
With love’s high zenith fever’d like the skies
Where eve has rent from them a fervid sun,
Then cool’d and calm’d in starlight sprinkled thick
Until the sun come back. We crack’d apart,
Like icebergs drifting southward, join’d no more,
And sunn’d alone the while they melt away.