Or Ever the Knightly Years Were Gone

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1. OR ever the knightly years were gone
2. With the old world to the grave,
3. I was a King in Babylon
4. And you were a Christian Slave.
5.  
6. I saw, I took, I cast you by,
7. I bent and broke your pride.
8. You loved me well, or I heard them lie,
9. But your longing was denied.
10. Surely I knew that by and by
11. You cursed your gods and died.
12.  
13. And a myriad suns have set and shone
14. Since then upon the grave
15. Decreed by the King in Babylon
16. To her that had been his Slave.
17.  
18. The pride I trampled is now my scathe,
19. For it tramples me again.
20. The old resentment lasts like death,
21. For you love, yet you refrain.
22. I break my heart on your hard unfaith,
23. And I break my heart in vain.
24.  
25. Yet not for an hour do I wish undone
26. The deed beyond the grave,
27. When I was a King in Babylon
28. And you were a Virgin Slave.