Stranger, you who hide my love
        In the curved cheek of a smile
And sleep with her upon a tongue
       Of soft lies that beguile,
          Your paradisal ecstasy
        Is justified is justified
By hunger of the beasts beneath
        The overhanging cloud
            Who to snatch quick pleasures run
             Before their momentary sun
Be eclipsed by death.

Lightly, lightly from my sleep
        She stole, our vows of dew to break
Upon a day of melting rain
        Another love to take:
           Her happy happy perfidy
        Was justified was justified
Since compulsive needs of sense
         Clamour to be satisfied
             And she was never one to miss
             Plausible happiness
Of a new experience.

I, who stand beneath a bitter
        Blasted tree, with the green life
Of summer joy cut from my side
        By that self-justifying knife,
            In my exiled misery
         Were justified were justified
If upon two lives I preyed
        Or punished with my suicide,
           Or murdered pity in my heart
           Or two other lives did part
To make the world pay what I paid.

Oh, but supposing that I climb
        Alone to a high room of clouds
Up a ladder of the time
And lie upon a bed alone
        And tear a feather from a wing
And liste