“through the maze
Of lights and worldly episodes of man,”
it is inevitable that her lover should cry,—
“Shouldst thou, perchance, peruse these simple lines,
I wonder even if thy heart would be
Touched by the pathos of my love, and see
In them the attitude that love defines,
Unfettered by the selfish light that shines
Through many a worldly eye.”
And in Sonnet XXIX, where he says she is “sweeter than are the flowers of spring,” that “give a delicate perfume unto the airs,” he acknowledges those charms which
... “surprise
My soul with smiles that banish every gloom,”
yet regretting that one so bountifully gifted with physical charms, and possessing all the polite accomplishments of culture, should be under those influences that are, like a canker, eating the loveliness of soul from her young life.
“I would that I ...
Might pluck thee from thy temporary bed
Of earthly pleasure, and possess the flower
Of thy young life, to keep it worthily
Within the garden of my heart.”
Before it is too late he would pluck her from her “temporary bed of earthly pleasure”—she whom Love stands ready to transform into the glory of her sex. The world, he tells her, is a bad school, with all its deceits, rivalries, and petty selfishness, and he who sees her comeliness would protect it from ruin in the “garden of his heart.” With all his care and solicitude, with his admirable and untiring sacrifice, she remains unresponsive to the full hope in his soul. There are the “blessed hours” she brings him, but conferring them only to make him sadder for the brief joy. For, “dying all too soon,” they leave him in
“pain
For many a day and weary week betimes.”
Because she constantly rejects the pressure of his suit, “Refusing strangely love’s perpetual flowers,” which she will not accept, his whole love seems vain,—