Chapter XIV

If fate has saved us from the banal sins
Of cowardly untruth and sad pretence,
It is because we would have no constraint
Whose yoke should bend our will with violence.

Free and sunlit on your road you fared,
Strewing with flowers of will your flowers of love;
Pausing to sustain me when my head
Bowed to the weight of doubt or fear above.

Always you were of gesture kind and frank,
Knowing my heart for you forever burned;
For if I loved another--could it be?--
Always it was to your heart I returned.

So pure your eyes were in their weeping that
My truth to you became my only lord;
I spoke to you then sweet and sacred words,
Your sorrow and your pardon were your sword.

I fell asleep at evening on your breast,
Glad with return from distance false and bleak
To warmth of spring within us, glad within
Your open arms captivity to seek.