Or ever the knightly years were gone
With the old world to the grave,
I was a king in Babylon
And you were a Christian slave.
I saw, I took, I cast you by,
I bent and broke your pride.
You loved me well, or I heard them lie,
But your longing was denied.
Vaguely I knew that by and by
You cursed your gods and died.
And a myriad suns have set and shone
Since then upon the grave
Decreed by the king in Babylon
To her that had been his slave.
The pride I trampled is now my scathe,
For it tramples me again.
The old resentment lasts like death,
For you love, yet you refrain.
I break my heart on your hard unfaith,
Yet I break my heart in vain.
Yet not for an hour do I wish undone
That deed beyond the grave,
When I was a king in Babylon
And you were a virgin slave.
William Ernest Henley.