THE MURDERER’S WINE
My wife is dead and I am free,
Now I may drink to my content;
When I came back without a cent
Her piteous outcries tortured me.
Now I am happy as a king,
The air is pure, the sky is clear;
Just such a summer as that year,
When first I went a-sweethearting.
A horrible thirst is tearing me,
To quench it I should have to swill
Just as much cool wine as would fill
Her tomb–that’s no small quantity.
I threw her down and then began
To pile upon her where she fell
All the great stones around the well—
I shall forget it if I can.
By all the soft vows of our prime,
By those eternal oaths we swore,
And that our love might be once more
As ’twas in our old passionate time,
I begged her in a lonely spot
To come and meet me at nightfall;
She came, mad creature—we are all
More or less crazy, are we not?
