And so seven moons had waxed and waned since these
Were wedded.  And it chanced, one morn of Spring
Lucia bespake her spouse in even more
Ungentle wise than was her wont, and he,
For the first time, reproved her;—­not as one
That having from another ta’en ill words
Will e’en cry quits and barter words as ill;
But liker as a father, whom his child
With insolent lips hath wounded, chides the child
Less than he knows it had been wise to do,
Saying within himself:  “The time will come
When thou wilt think on thy dead father, how
Thou might’st have spoken gentlier unto him
One day, when yet thy father was alive: 
So shall thy heart rebuke thy heart enow:”—­
Ev’n thus did Angelo reprove his wife.

But though the words from his rough-bearded lips
Were like sweet water from the mouth of some
Rock-fountain hewn with elemental hands,
They fell as water cast i’ the fire, to be
Consumed with hissing rage.  Her wrath, let loose,
Blew to and fro, and hither and thither, like
A wind that seems to have forgotten whence
It came, and whither it was bidden blow. 
She cursed the kinsfolk who had willed that she
Should wed with him; and cursed herself that gave
Ear to the utterance of their will; and cursed
The day on which their will became her deed: 
Saying—­and this he knew not until now—­
“Fool, I should ne’er have wedded thee at all,
No, neither thee nor any like to thee,
Had not my father wellnigh forced me to ’t.” 
And he that hearkened, the Lord Angelo,
Spake not a word, but bowed his head, and went
Forth of his castle to the forest nigh,
And roamed all day about the forest, filled
With grief, and marvelling at her lack of love.

But that which sorelier bruised his breast than ev’n
Lucia’s exceeding lack of love for him,
Was this new knowledge, that in taking her
To wife—­in the very act of taking her
To wife—­himself had crossed the secret will
Of her whose will in all things it had been
His soul’s most perfect bliss to gratify. 
Wherefore, to make atonement, in some sort,
For this one wrong he deemed that he had done
The woman—­this one crossing of her will—­
He knelt him down under the brooding shade
Of a huge oak, and vowed ’fore heaven a vow: 
To wit, that Lucia never afterward
Should in his hearing utter forth a wish
For aught of earthly but himself would see
That wish fulfilled, if such fulfilment were
An end that mortal man could compass.  Then
Uprising, he beheld the sinking sun
A vast round eye gaze in upon the wood
Through leafy lattice of its nether boughs: 
Whereat he turned him castlewards, and owned
A lighter heart than he had borne that day.