The Image In The Glass.

I.     The slow reflection of a woman's face     Grew, as by witchcraft, in the oval space     Of that strange glass on which the moon looked in:     As cruel as death beneath the auburn hair     The dark eyes burned; and, o'er the faultless chin,     Evil as night yet as the daybreak fair,     Rose-red and sensual smiled the mouth of sin. II.     The glorious throat and shoulders and, twin crests     Of snow, the splendid beauty of the breasts,     Filled soul and body with the old desire     Daughter of darkness! how could this thing be?     You, whom I loathed! for whom my heart's fierce fire     Had burnt to ashes of satiety!     You, who had sunk my soul in all that's dire! III.     How came your image there? and in that room!     Where she, the all adored, my life's sweet bloom,     Died poisoned! She, my scarcely one week's bride     Yea, poisoned by a gift you sent to her,     Thinking her death would win me to your side.     And so it did! but... well, it made some stir     By your own hand, I think, they said you died. IV.     Time passed. And then was it the curse of crime,     That night of nights, which forced my feet to climb     To that locked bridal-room? 'T was midnight when     A longing, like to madness, mastered me,     Compelled me to that chamber, which for ten     Sad years was sealed; a dark necessity     To gaze upon I knew not what again. V.     Love's ghost, perhaps. Or, in the curvature     Of that strange mirror, something that might cure     The ache in me some message, said perchance     Of her dead loveliness, which once it glassed,     That might repeat again my lost romance     In momentary pictures of the past,     While in its depths her image swam in trance. VI.     I did not dream to see the soulless eyes     Of you I hated; nor the lips where lies     And kisses curled; your features, that were tuned     To all demonic, smiling up as might     Some deep damnation! while... my God! I swooned!.     Oozed slowly out, between the breast's dead white,     The ghastly red of that wide dagger-wound.