VII

Grim-hearted world, that look’st with Levite eyes
  On those poor fallen by too much faith in man, 330
She that upon thy freezing threshold lies,
  Starved to more sinning by thy savage ban,
Seeking that refuge because foulest vice
  More godlike than thy virtue is, whose span
Shuts out the wretched only, is more free
To enter heaven than thou shalt ever be!

VIII

Thou wilt not let her wash thy dainty feet
  With such salt things as tears, or with rude hair
Dry them, soft Pharisee, that sit’st at meat
  With him who made her such, and speak’st him fair. 340
Leaving God’s wandering lamb the while to bleat
  Unheeded, shivering in the pitiless air: 
Thou hast made prisoned virtue show more wan
And haggard than a vice to look upon.

IX

Now many months flew by, and weary grew
  To Margaret the sight of happy things;
Blight fell on all her flowers, instead of dew;
  Shut round her heart were now the joyous wings
Wherewith it wont to soar; yet not untrue,
  Though tempted much, her woman’s nature clings 350
To its first pure belief, and with sad eyes
Looks backward o’er the gate of Paradise.

X

And so, though altered Mordred came less oft,
  And winter frowned where spring had laughed before
In his strange eyes, yet half her sadness doffed,
  And in her silent patience loved him more: 
Sorrow had made her soft heart yet more soft,
  And a new life within her own she bore
Which made her tenderer, as she felt it move
Beneath her breast, a refuge for her love. 360

XI

This babe, she thought, would surely bring him back,
  And be a bond forever them between;
Before its eyes the sullen tempest-rack
  Would fade, and leave the face of heaven serene;
And love’s return doth more than fill the lack,
  Which in his absence withered the heart’s green: 
And yet a dim foreboding still would flit
Between her and her hope to darken it.

XII

She could not figure forth a happy fate,
  Even for this life from heaven so newly come; 370
The earth must needs be doubly desolate
  To him scarce parted from a fairer home: 
Such boding heavier on her bosom sate
  One night, as, standing in the twilight gloam,
She strained her eyes beyond that dizzy verge
At whose foot faintly breaks the future’s surge.

XIII

Poor little spirit! naught but shame and woe
  Nurse the sick heart whose life-blood nurses thine: 
Yet not those only; love hath triumphed so,
  As for thy sake makes sorrow more divine:  380
And yet, though thou be pure, the world is foe
  To purity, if born in such a shrine;
And, having trampled it for struggling thence,
Smiles to itself, and calls it Providence.