VI.

Perchance ’twas the fault of the life that they led;
Perchance ’twas the fault of the novels they read;
Perchance ’twas a fault in themselves; I am bound not
To say: this I know—that these two creatures found not
In each other some sign they expected to find
Of a something unnamed in the heart or the mind;
And, missing it, each felt a right to complain
Of a sadness which each found no word to explain.
Whatever it was, the world noticed not it
In the light-hearted beauty, the light-hearted wit.
Still, as once with the actors in Greece, ’tis the case,
Each must speak to the crowd with a mask on his face.
Praise follow’d Matilda wherever she went,
She was flatter’d. Can flattery purchase content?
Yes. While to its voice for a moment she listen’d,
The young cheek still bloom’d and the soft eyes still glisten’d;
And her lord, when, like one of those light vivid things
That glide down the gauzes of summer with wings
Of rapturous radiance, unconscious she moved
Through that buzz of inferior creatures, which proved
Her beauty, their envy, one moment forgot,
’Mid the many charms there, the one charm that was not:
And when o’er her beauty enraptured he bow’d,
(As they turn’d to each other, each flush’d from the crowd,)
And murmur’d those praises which yet seem’d more dear
Than the praises of others had grown to her ear,
She, too, ceased awhile her own fate to regret:
"Yes! . . . he loves me," she sigh’d; "this is love, then—and YET!"