i.
I tell thee Sweet! there lives not on the earth
A love like mine in all the height and girth
And all the vast completion of the sphere.
I should be proud, to-day, to shed a tear
If I could weep. But tears are most denied
When most besought; and joys are sanctified
By joys' undoing in this world of ours
From dusk to dawn and dawn to eventide.
ii.
Wert thou a marble maid and I endow'd
With power to move thee from thy seeming shroud
Of frozen splendour,—all thy whiteness mine
And all the glamour, all the tender shine
Of thy glad eyes,—ah God! if this were so,
And I the loosener, in the summer-glow,
Of thy long tresses! I were licensed then
To gaze, unchidden, on thy limbs of snow.
iii.
I would prepare for thee a holy niche
In some new temple, and with draperies rich,
And flowers and lamps and incense of the best,
I would with something of mine own unrest
Imbue thy blood and prompt thee to be just.
I would endow thee with a fairer trust
Than mere contentment, and a dearer joy
Than mere revulsion from the sins of dust.