Phaedra

by Edith Wharton

　　Last martyr of my love-ensanguined race;

　　Not that my children drop the averted face

　　When my name shames the silence; not that hell

　　Holds me where nevermore his glance shall dwell

　　Nightlong between my lids, my pulses race

　　Through flying pines the tempest of the chase,

　　Nor my heart rest with him beside the well.

　　Not that he hates me; not, O baffled gods --

　　Not that I slew him! -- yet, because your goal

　　Is always reached, nor your rejoicing rods

　　Fell ever yet upon insensate clods,

　　Know, the one pang that makes your triumph whole

　　Is, that he knows the baseness of my soul.