So gallant, yet so good, the gentlest maid

By this fair standard her own suitor weighed.

I hold the perfect mating of two souls,

Through wedded love, to be the sum of bliss.

When Earth, this fruit that ripens as it rolls

In sunlight, grows more prime, lives will not miss

Their counterparts, and each shall find its own;

But now with what blind chance the lots are thrown!

And because Love sets with a rising tide

Along the drift where much has gone before