Get out of my sight or I strike you
Dead in your shameless shame!
No, no, I was wild, I was brutal;
I would not take your life,
For the efforts of death would be futile
To wipe out the sin of a wife.
Wife--why, that word has seemed sainted
I uttered it like a prayer;
And now to think it is tainted -
Christ! how much we can bear!

"Slay you!" my boy's stained mother -
Nay, that would not punish, or save;
A soul that has outraged another
Finds no sudden peace in the grave.
I will leave you here to REMEMBER
The Eden that was your own,
While on toward my life's December
I walk in the dark alone.



TWO SINNERS



There was a man, it was said one time,
Who went astray in his youthful prime.
Can the brain keep cool and the heart keep quiet
When the blood is a river that's running riot?