Page:Wessex poems and other verses (IA wessexpoemsother00hard).pdf/119

Was treated ill when offspring came
Of the new-made dame,
And marked a more vigorous line.

A smarter grief within me wrought
Than even at loss of her so dear;
Dead the being whose soul my soul suffused,
Her child ill-used,
I helpless to interfere!

One eve as I stood at my spot of thought
In the white-stoned Garth, brooding thus her wrong,
Her husband neared; and to shun his view
By her hallowed mew
I went from the tombs among

To the Cirque of the Gladiators which faced—
That haggard mark of Imperial Rome.
Whose Pagan echoes mock the chime
Of our Christian time:
It was void, and I inward clomb.