some apparent lack
in my dedication
(be a lady).
Permission to examine a life
yet to be presented, proved.
I render thanks to him,
the obtainable man so complex,
so violent, and so repressed
he is crippled groom-in-waiting.
He holds subordinate
then suddenly flashes out (not as
‘darling’), the
obscure man in a continual blaze.
Sacrificed to an intrigue,
he becomes, he shatters,
he divests,
he dies, and pins faith to the hour of death.
His associations are ignoble, if not humiliating;
he has to serve the mistress.
Flouted and insulted,
our history does fall to the consummation
of the lie beyond limits.
(Source: Chatham, by Lord Rosebery, a Project Gutenberg eBook.)