“A woman for whom great gods might strive!” I said, and kissed her there: And then I thought of the other five, And of how charms outwear.
I thought of the first with her eating eyes, And I thought of the second with hers, green-gray, And I thought of the third, experienced, wise, And I thought of the fourth who sang all day.
And I thought of the fifth, whom I'd called a jade, And I thought of them all, tear-fraught; And that each had shown her a passable maid, Yet not of the favour sought.
So I traced these words on the bark of a beech, Just at the falling of the mast: “After scanning five; yes, each and each, I've found the woman desired — at last!”
“— I feel a strange benumbing spell, As one ill-wished!” said she. And soon it seemed that something fell Was starving her love for me.
“I feel some curse. O, FIVE were there?” And wanly she swerved, and went away. I followed sick: night numbed the air, And dark the mournful moorland lay.
I cried: “O darling, turn your head!” But never her face I viewed; “O turn, O turn!” again I said, And miserably pursued.
At length I came to a Christ-cross stone Which she had passed without discern; And I knelt upon the leaves there strown, And prayed aloud that she might turn.
I rose, and looked; and turn she did; I cried, “My heart revives!” “Look more,” she said. I looked as bid; Her face was all the five's.
All the five women, clear come back, I saw in her — with her made one, The while she drooped upon the track, And her frail term seemed well-nigh run.
She'd half forgot me in her change; “Who are you? Wo n't you say Who you may be, you man so strange, Following since yesterday?”
I took the composite form she was, And carried her to an arbour small, Not passion-moved, but even because In one I could atone to all.
And there she lies, and there I tend, Till my life's threads unwind, A various womanhood in blend - Not one, but all combined.
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