A Man's Repentance

(Intended for recitation at club dinners.)


To-night when I came from the club at eleven,
    Under the gaslight I saw a face -
A woman's face! and I swear to heaven
    It looked like the ghastly ghost of - Grace!

And Grace? why, Grace was fair; and I tarried,
    And loved her a season as we men do.
And then - but pshaw! why, of course, she is married,
    Has a husband, and doubtless a babe or two.

She was perfectly calm on the day we parted;
    She spared me a scene, to my great surprise.
"She wasn't the kind to be broken-hearted,"
    I remember she said, with a spark in her eyes.

I was tempted, I know, by her proud defiance,
    To make good my promise there and then.
But the world would have called it a mesalliance!
    I dreaded the comments and sneers of men.

So I left her to grieve for a faithless lover,
    And to hide her heart from the cold world's sight
As women do hide them, the wide earth over;
    My God! was it Grace that I saw to-night?

I thought of her married, and often with pity,
    A poor man's wife in some dull place.
And now to know she is here in the city,
    Under the gaslight, and with that face!

Yet I knew it at once, in spite of the daubing
    Of paint and powder, and she knew me;
She drew a quick breath that was almost sobbing
    And shrank in the shade so I should not see.

There was hell in her eyes!    She was worn and jaded
    Her soul is at war with the life she has led.
As I looked on that face so strangely faded
    I wonder God did not strike me dead.

While I have been happy and gay and jolly,
    Received by the very best people in town,
That girl whom I led in the way to folly,
    Has gone on recklessly down and down.

* * * * *

Two o'clock, and no sleep has found me;
    That face I saw in the street-lamp's light
Peers everywhere out from the shadows around me -
    I know how a murderer feels to-night.