When print on paper tells, in the time’s affairs
How he betrays and clouds the precarious cause
He once led well, I feel a pang and tears.
The microscope of love’s near-scrutiny
Saw this in small. (Trembling with less passive tears,
—So much lay in him that was life to me,
And he with me so mingled. So I was—
And so ensued the heart-break of the years.)

Yet I never thought to such a ruinous end
And such complete corrosion to see him come.
Here, stamped on the paper, false! O traitorous friend,
So long ago detected, here in sum.