The Tree - An Old Man's Story

I     Its roots are bristling in the air     Like some mad Earth-god's spiny hair;     The loud south-wester's swell and yell     Smote it at midnight, and it fell.      Thus ends the tree      Where Some One sat with me. II     Its boughs, which none but darers trod,     A child may step on from the sod,     And twigs that earliest met the dawn     Are lit the last upon the lawn.      Cart off the tree      Beneath whose trunk sat we! III     Yes, there we sat: she cooed content,     And bats ringed round, and daylight went;     The gnarl, our seat, is wrenched and sunk,     Prone that queer pocket in the trunk      Where lay the key      To her pale mystery. IV     "Years back, within this pocket-hole     I found, my Love, a hurried scrawl     Meant not for me," at length said I;     "I glanced thereat, and let it lie:      The words were three -      'Beloved, I agree.' V     "Who placed it here; to what request     It gave assent, I never guessed.     Some prayer of some hot heart, no doubt,     To some coy maiden hereabout,      Just as, maybe,      With you, Sweet Heart, and me." VI     She waited, till with quickened breath     She spoke, as one who banisheth     Reserves that lovecraft heeds so well,     To ease some mighty wish to tell:      "'Twas I," said she,      "Who wrote thus clinchingly. VII     "My lover's wife - aye, wife! - knew nought     Of what we felt, and bore, and thought . . .     He'd said: 'I wed with thee or die:     She stands between, 'tis true. But why?      Do thou agree,      And - she shalt cease to be.' VIII     "How I held back, how love supreme     Involved me madly in his scheme     Why should I say? . . . I wrote assent     (You found it hid) to his intent . . .      She - DIED . . . But he      Came not to wed with me. IX     "O shrink not, Love! - Had these eyes seen     But once thine own, such had not been!     But we were strangers . . . Thus the plot     Cleared passion's path. - Why came he not      To wed with me? . . .      He wived the gibbet-tree." X     - Under that oak of heretofore     Sat Sweetheart mine with me no more:     By many a Fiord, and Strom, and Fleuve     Have I since wandered . . . Soon, for love,      Distraught went she -      'Twas said for love of me.