“Doretta, nay; but stop,” I cried again,
“Put by the knife!—and if you will, then I—
Then I and Haydn will not”—
“You?” she laugh’d,
“And Haydn?—Humph!—Who cares what you may do?—
But ah—if planning thus to vent your thought,
Could I have chosen, eh, a shrewder way?—
Ha! ha!—to murder me, or you, or him!
It starts all madness, yes, to tap your moods.
But go in, simpleton,—the rain has come,—
And trust the knife to me. It meant no harm
Except to this beheaded cabbage here.”
And, shaking this aloft, she flitted off,
While I walk’d vaguely back, to find my room
Still sadder than before. I could not think
That my surmise was just; yet could not think
That all her strange demean was meaningless;
To this day yet, I pause and puzzle oft
That scene to ponder; then, to moods confused,
It seem’d the final blow, unsettling all.