The Slighted Lady

BY ANNA WICKHAM

There was a man who won a beautiful woman.
Not only was she lovely, and shaped like a woman,
But she had a beautiful mind.
She understood everything the man said to her,
She listened and smiled,
And the man possessed her and grew in ecstasy,
And he talked while the woman listened and smiled.

But there came a day when the woman understood even
more than the man had said ;
Then she spoke, and the man, sated with possession, and
weary with words, slept.
He slept on the threshold of his house.
The woman was within, in a small room.

Then to the window of her room
Came a young lover with his lute,
And thus he sang :

" O, beautiful woman, who can perfect my dreams,
Take my soul into your hands
Like a clear crystal ball.
Warm it to softness at your breast,
And shape it as you will.
We two shall sing together living songs,
And walk our Paradise, in an eternal noon---
Come, my Desire, I wait."

But the woman, remembering the sleeper and her faith,
Shook her good head, to keep the longing from her eyes,
At which the lover sang again, and with such lusty rapture
That the sleeper waked,
And, listening to the song, he said :
" My woman has bewitched this man---
He is seduced.
What folly does he sing ?
This woman is no goddess, but my wife ;
And no perfection, but the keeper of my house.'*

Whereat the woman said within her heart ;
" My husband has not looked at me for many days---
He has forgot that flesh is warm,
And that the spirit hungers.
I have waited long within the house ;
I freeze with dumbness, and I go."

Then she stept down from her high window
And walked with her young lover, singing to his lute.