and nodding, as in scorn, —Tennyson (1842): Godiva I reached my bower before the tears came. They coursed down my cheeks over my chin, down my neck. A torrent, a river, a stream, so fast I couldn’t halt the flow. I tasted them: tears of rage, tears of lust, and tears of pain that came deep from my heart, as if an arrow had split it in two. How could it have come to this? Sobs consumed me as I collapsed onto the bed, where we’d shared so much. The secret scent of him, long gone on the linen. Washed away. I loved him. I loved Leofric of Mercia with every thread of my being. The feelings that had kindled with his touch, igniting my body, had flamed into my soul. They’d flickered into life when he’d ridden into Coventry, even before, when I’d first heard his name. But it was of no consequence when my feelings had begun. My heart was his. To think I’d started to dream that perhaps he might love me, too! I cast a sour laugh to the stars painted on the roof of my bower, the stars I’d stared at on our wedding night when he’d taken my maidenhood.
