How strange is love, O my lover!
With what enchantment and power
Does it not come upon mortals,
Learned or heedless!
How far away and unreal, 5
Faint as blue isles in a sunset
Haze-golden, all else of life seems,
Since I have known thee!
LXXX
How to say I love you:
What, if I but live it,
Were the use in that, love?
Small, indeed.
Only, every moment 5
Of this waking lifetime
Let me be your lover
And your friend!
Ah, but then, as sure as
Blossom breaks from bud-sheath, 10
When along the hillside
Spring returns,
Golden speech should flower
From the soul so cherished,
And the mouth your kisses 15
Filled with fire.
LXXXI
Hark, love, to the tambourines
Of the minstrels in the street,
And one voice that throbs and soars
Clear above the clashing time!
Some Egyptian royal love-lilt, 5
Some Sidonian refrain,
Vows of Paphos or of Tyre,
Mount against the silver sun.