Page:Demeter and other poems (IA demeterotherpoem00tennrich).pdf/79

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THE RING
65
And weird and worn and wizard-like was he.'Why weird?' I ask'd him; and he said 'The soulsOf two repentant Lovers guard the ring;'Then with a ribald twinkle in his bleak eyes—'And if you give the ring to any maid,They still remember what it cost them here,And bind the maid to love you by the ring;And if the ring were stolen from the maid,The theft were death or madness to the thief,So sacred those Ghost Lovers hold the gift.'And then he told their legend:
'Long agoTwo lovers parted by a scurrilous taleHad quarrell'd, till the man repenting sentThis ring "Io t'amo" to his best beloved,And sent it on her birthday. She in wrath
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