She ceased and sent a telegram.  To Guy le Preux de Balthazar--
    Here followed his address, and then
  This pregnant message--"Right you are!"
    She wrote it with the office pen.  She flashed the phrase along the wires,
    Then, passing by a dagger-shop,
  Bought one and wiped it on her sire's
    Best graduated razor-strop.  On second thoughts, she said, I lean
    To poison; true, a knife like this
  Looks pretty, rib and rib between,
    But people very often miss.  She sought the chemist in his place;
    He sampled her with searching eye;
  She looked him frankly in the face,
    And told a wicked, wicked lie.  "My hen," she said,--"a bantam blend--
    Has hatched a poor demented chick;
  To ease the gentle creature's end
    I want a pint of arsenic."  The chemist deemed the order large,
    But said no thing and drew the drug;
  She seized and bore the sacred charge
    Before her in a pewter mug.At tea she faced her fell intent;
Dressing, she lightly laughed at doom;
Dined with the family, and spent
The evening in the drawing-room.  
At ten the early rooster crowed;
Ten-thirty struck and she was gone;
She crossed alone the naked road;
The road had really nothing on.  
Her golden braids hung down her back;
Within her side she felt a stitch;
And once the moon behind the wrack
Came out and caught her in a ditch.  
Once ere she reached the trysting-pear
She broke the slumber of the rooks;
She wrung her hands, she tore her hair,
And did as people do in books.  
From out her cloak she fetched the drug--
"Thy health, my love, in Heaven or Hell!"
Deep to the dregs she drained the mug
And dropped it, feeling far from well.  
Upon the punctual stroke her fond
True lover kept the oath he swore;

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