“Then with this Gospel clutched in both my hands,
I swore a solemn oath that I would rise,
If God would spare me;—­she should see me rise,
And learn what she had lost.—­Yes, I would mount
Merely to be revenged.  I would not cringe
Down like a spaniel underneath the lash,
But like a man would teach my proud Pauline
And her hard father to repent the day
They called me ‘beggar.’  Thus I raved and stormed
That mad night out;—­forgot at dawn of morn
This holy book, but fell to a huge tome
And read two hundred pages in a day. 
I could not keep the thread of argument;
I could not hold my mind upon the book;
I could not break the silent under-tow
That swept all else from out my throbbing brain
But false Pauline.  I read from morn till night,
But having closed the book I could not tell
Aught of its contents.  Then I cursed myself,
And muttered—­’Fool—­can you not shake it off—­
This nightmare of your boyhood?—­Brave, indeed—­
Crushed like a spaniel by this false Pauline! 
Crushed am I?—­By the gods, I’ll make an end,
And she shall never know it nettled me!’
So passed the weary days.  My cheeks grew thin;
I needed rest, I said, and quit my books
To range the fields and hills with fowling-piece
And ‘mal prepense’ toward the feathery flocks. 
The pigeons flew from tree-tops o’er my head;
I heard the flap of wings—­and they were gone;
The pheasant whizzed from bushes at my feet
Unseen until its sudden whir of wings
Startled and broke my wandering reverie;
And then I whistled and relapsed to dreams,
Wandering I cared not whither—­wheresoe’er
My silent gun still bore its primal charge. 
So gameless, but with cheeks and forehead tinged
By breeze and sunshine, I returned to books. 
But still a phantom haunted all my dreams—­
Awake or sleeping, for awake I dreamed—­
A spectre that I could not chase away—­
The phantom-form of my own false Pauline.

“Six months wore off—­six long and weary months;
Then came a letter from a school-boy friend—­
In answer to the queries I had made—­
Filled with the gossip of my native town. 
Unto her father’s friend—­a bachelor,
Her senior by full twenty years at least—­
Dame Rumor said Pauline had pledged her hand. 
I knew him well—­a sly and cunning man—­
A honey-tongued, false-hearted flatterer. 
And he my rival—­carrying off my prize? 
But what cared I? ’twas all the same to me—­
Yea, better for the sweet revenge to come. 
So whispered pride, but in my secret heart
I cared, and hoped whatever came to pass
She might be happy all her days on earth,
And find a happy haven at the end.

“My thoughtful master bade me quit my books
A month at least, for I was wearing out. 
‘Unbend the bow,’ he said.  His watchful eye
Saw toil and care at work upon my cheeks;
He could not see the canker at my heart,
But he had seen pale students wear away
With overwork the vigor of their lives;
And so he gave me means and bade me go
To romp a month among my native hills. 
I went, but not as I had left my home—­
A bashful boy, uncouth and coarsely clad,
But clothed and mannered like a gentleman.