"If any of you know
Cause or impediment."--
Cause! I should think I do,
That girl to wed I meant!
She made me drink the cup
Of woe, well-shaken up
With bitter sediment.
If I forbid the banns
With visage pallid,
Ere she's another man's,
And I have rallied,
Because in bygone days
With me she dallied,
Would my forbidding phrase
Be counted valid?
Because her eyes would shine
Once when I praised her,
Because her heart to mine,
When I upraised her
From the low garden chair,
Beat for a moment's space
With sudden, yielding grace
While I just kiss'd her hair,
Which nought amazed her;
Soothed her with loving touch,
Loving, but not too much,
When on her little hand
The buckle of her band
Had lightly grazed her?
Slowly our souls between
Mists of reserve crept in--
I reck'd not, blindly--
A sister she became,
O chill and veal-like name!
A great deal less than kin,
Much less than kindly.
Then on the old sweet ways
Of thoughtless, chummy days,
Turning severely,
Pride, hooded in dislike,
Struck as a snake might strike,
And, in the public gaze,
Froze me austerely.
Well, all is vanity;
She'll disillusion'd be,
And I--well, as for me,
When these confusions
Clear from my brain away,
Back in my thoughts I'll stray
Where sunbeams ever play
On lost illusions.
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