How Love smiles through hate's iron casque,
Hate grins through Love's rose-braided mask,—
And how, having hated thee,
I sought long and painfully
To wound thee, and not prick
The skin, but pierce to the quick—
Ask this, my Jules, and be answered straight
By thy bride—how the painter Lutwyche can hate!
Jules interposes.
Lutwyche! who else? But all of them, no doubt,
Hated me: they at Venice—presently
Their turn, however! You I shall not meet:
If I dreamed saying this would wake me!
Keep
What's here, this gold—we cannot meet again,
Consider—and the money was but meant
For two years' travel, which is over now,
All chance, or hope, or care, or need of it!
This—and what comes from selling these, my casts
And books, and medals, except...let them go
Together, so the produce keeps you safe,
Out of Natalia's clutches!—If by chance
(For all's chance here) I should survive the gang
At Venice, root out all fifteen of them,
We might meet somewhere, since the world is wide,
[From without is heard the voice of Pippa, singing—
Give her but a least excuse to love me!
When—where
How—can this arm establish her above me,
If fortune fired her as my lady there,