“It had been better for me NOT to sing,”
  My Poet said, “and for her NOT to shine;”
But him the old man answered, sorrowing,
  “My son, did God who made her, the Divine
Lighter of suns, when down to yon bright ring
  He cast her, like some gleaming almandine,
And set her in her place, begirt with rays,
Say unto her ‘Give light,’ or say ‘Earn praise?’”

The Poet said, “He made her to give light.” 
  “My son,” the old man answered, “Blest are such;
A blessed lot is theirs; but if each night
  Mankind had praised her radiance, inasmuch
As praise had never made it wax more bright,
  And cannot now rekindle with its touch
Her lost effulgence, it is nought.  I wot
That praise was not her blessing nor her lot.”

“Ay,” said the Poet, “I my words abjure,
  And I repent me that I uttered them;
But by her light and by its forfeiture
  She shall not pass without her requiem. 
Though my name perish, yet shall hers endure;
  Though I should be forgotten, she, lost gem,
Shall be remembered; though she sought not fame,
It shall be busy with her beauteous name.

“For I will raise in her bright memory,
  Lost now on earth, a lasting monument,
And graven on it shall recorded be
  That all her rays to light mankind were spent;
And I will sing albeit none heedeth me,
  On her exemplar being still intent: 
While in men’s sight shall stand the record thus—­
‘So long as she did last she lighted us.’”

So said, he raised, according to his vow,
  On the green grass where oft his townsfolk met,
Under the shadow of a leafy bough
  That leaned toward a singing rivulet,
One pure white stone, whereon, like crown on brow,
  The image of the vanished star was set;
And this was graven on the pure white stone
In golden letters—­“WHILE SHE LIVED SHE SHONE.”

Madam, I cannot give this story well—­
  My heart is beating to another chime;
My voice must needs a different cadence swell;
  It is yon singing bird, which all the time
Wooeth his nested mate, that doth dispel
  My thoughts.  What, deem you, could a lover’s rhyme
The sweetness of that passionate lay excel? 
O soft, O low her voice—­“I cannot tell.”

(He thinks.)

The old man—­ay, he spoke, he was not hard;
  “She was his joy,” he said, “his comforter,
But he would trust me.  I was not debarred
  Whate’er my heart approved to say to her.” 
Approved!  O torn and tempted and ill-starred
  And breaking heart, approve not nor demur;
It is the serpent that beguileth thee
With “God doth know” beneath this apple-tree.

Yea, God DOTH know, and only God doth know. 
  Have pity, God, my spirit groans to Thee! 
I bear Thy curse primeval, and I go;
  But heavier than on Adam falls on me
My tillage of the wilderness; for lo,
  I leave behind the woman, and I see
As ’twere the gates of Eden closing o’er
To hide her from my sight for evermore.