This lax-limb’d, loitering, sisterly regard,
So cold, so calm, so cautious,—what was this?—
To call it love my spirit could have swoon’d,
Shrunk like some parent’s when he first has found
His fair babe’s brain to be a gibbering blank.—
And then, down underneath my deep despair,
Where heaved a sigh that loosen’d all my soul,
Like some sweet kiss of sudden death that draws
To sudden bliss, when men to heaven are snatch’d
From all the roar and rage of war, there came