Identities

I sat alone in the arrased room
Of Sin, wrapped pale in her winding shroud;
The night was stricken with glare and gloom,
And the wailing wind was loud.

I heard the gallop of one who rode
Like a rushing leaf on the wind that lisps;
The night with the speed of her steed was sowed
With streaming will-o’-the-wisps.

And I said to myself, “’Tis a long-lost Shame,
Who rides to my house through the night and rain!
She will blaze in the blackness a face of flame
When she opens the door again!”

I thought of the blame on her lips and brow;
And stared at the door she must enter in--
To sear my soul with her eyes and bow
My heart by the corpse of Sin.

As hushed as the mansion of death was night,
When, dark as a sob of the storm, she came--
But her face, like beautiful Sin’s, was white,
And her face and Sin’s--the same!