Chapter VI: (In After Years to Him)

You say that love then led us--you and me?
I say 'twas hate, that wore love's wanting eyes:
Hate that I could not tear away the lies
That wrapped you with their silken sorcery.
Hate that for you I could not open skies
Where beauty lives of her own loveliness;
That God would give me no omnipotence
To purge and mould anew your soul's numb sense.
Aye, hate that I could love you not tho love
Pent in me ached with passion-born distress--
While thro unfathomable dark the Prize
Seemed sinking, as my soul, from heaven above.
Love, say you? love? and hate rent us apart?
I tell you hate alone so tears the heart.