Whence all that's low comes, and there touch and stay

—Never to overtake the rest of me,

All that, unspotted, reaches up to you,
Drawn by those eyes! What rises is myself,
Not so the shame and suffering; but they sink,
Are left, I rise above them. Keep me so,
Above the world!
But you sink, for your eyes
Are altering—altered! Stay—'I love you, love you'...

I could prevent it if I understood:
More of your words to me: was't in the tone
Or the words, your power?
Or stay—I will repeat
Their speech, if that contents you! Only, change
No more, and I shall find it presently
—Far back here, in the brain yourself filled
Natalia threatened me that harm would follow

Unless I spoke their lesson to the end,
But harm to me, I thought she meant, not you
Your friends,—Natalia said they were your friends
And meant you well,—because, I doubted it,
Observing (what was very strange to see)
On every face, so different in all else,
The same smile girls like us are used to bear,
But never men, men cannot stoop so low;

Yet your friends, speaking of you, used that smile,
That hateful smirk of boundless self-conceit
Which seems to take possession of this world
And make of God their tame confederate,
Purveyor to their appetites...you know!
But no—Natalia said they were your friends,

And they assented while they smiled the more,