I loved too tamely, I had thought, and you

Became a kindly jailer in my mind.

Monotony of living helped to blind

My soporific eyes to what was true.

I wept for me condemned to this milieu.

I was a martyr; somewhere I would find

A wild, free-flaming love, and it would bind

Me not, nor would it ask me to subdue

This independent soul, so fettered now.

But you were gone awhile and then I learned

Without you freedom was a jail, and how

Could I escape? The heart within me yearned

For chains again. No freedom could allow

The warm sweet need of love with which I burned.