"
"Yes, yes, Arline," he speaks with eager air,
"I know full well your love was mine, and I
Now claim the hand your heart cannot deny."
"Lorraine, how can you speak such words to me?
My love was never thine, my heart is free;
You know full well I was but kind, Lorraine,
When from thy love I fled to save thee pain.
When first I met the world a vision came
So bright--of glorious power and wealth and fame;
A part of that bright dream your worship seemed,
That you could claim my heart I little dreamed.
Yet soon I woke and with an earnest will
I sought thy mind with deeper thoughts to fill.
It mattered not, your heart's bright flame still burned;--
What were your flowers, your jeweled love to me?--
I loved thee not; each one I would have spurned,
Had not my woman's heart been kind to thee.
At last to fly from thee, the season o'er,
I refuge sought upon this lonely shore;
And though the riches of the world were thine,
They could not win for thee one thought of mine."
His face grows darker with a fiery pride,
His eyes flash forth the love he cannot hide;
He rises to his feet, across his soul
A passionate fury his will cannot control,
Bursts forth:
"Arline, you know not what is love!
To tell me this, for by the fates above,
You shall be mine! See, yonder is my boat,
Upon the waves with me you soon shall float.
Hush! rouse me not or you shall see
What angry might your scorn has wrought in me.
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