WHY, thou being changeless, changeful did I write,
Trusting thy truth, yet doubting thy defect,
Now all-triumphant, now confounded quite,
Sad-suited all, or proud in purple deck’d?
Did I not write of thy rare constancy,
Wherein was none like thee, thou like to none;
Swear that thy heart within my heart did lie
Past all removal till the world were done?
E’en so; but though, when clouds the region hold,
Masking with envious murk the sun’s bright face,
Our o’ergloom’d spirits shudder ’neath the cold,
He merits not the blame of that disgrace:
Himself is still the same, still warm, still bright,
Though clouds between hide both the warmth and light.
VII
YET, being so chill’d, do we not chide the sun,
And say he wilful hides his face away,
Say ’tis his will makes the world drear and dun,
And takes the golden glory from the day?
The envious rack we rather should reproach,
That comes betwixt us in despite of him,
Rebellious powers, that on his reign encroach,
And, black themselves, his brightness joy to dim.
So when the troubling mischiefs of the time,
Or baser minds, bent upon marring thee,
Stole moments of thy favour, then my rhyme
Slander’d thy love and slurr’d thy constancy.
Yet the sun’s self unstain’d and bright remains,
And my heart knew thy stains were not thy stains.
VIII
IF wrongfully I moan’d thy ‘pretty wrongs’,
When I was ’sometime absent from thy heart’,
O none so trusting but to him belongs
Some moody moment of his mortal part!
No man doth Nature make whose trust doth ever
Unveering with all winds point still the same;
None is so whole in health he knows no fever
To shake the firm composure of his frame.
My love so wholly thine, thy worth so dear,
Made each thine absence so distract my breast,
That in his turmoil faith sometime to fear
Converted, doubting most when most ’twas blest.
Because mine own heart lone without thee seem’d,
Me absent from thy heart I falsely deem’d.
IX
I WRIT how once I wander’d from thy side,
Serving the strong suggestions of my blood,
Only to prove from worse things vainly tried
How far more precious grew thy sum of good.
If I so lov’d thee, what is my defence,
That thy dear love fail’d then my steps to stay,
That idle hours were idly given to sense,
And soul forsaken at the call of clay?
O let love grant excuse; my sensual part
Dwelt ever far from pure untainted thee;
It held no conversation with my heart,
Nor, us’d or check’d, could be thine injury.
If once it triumph’d, carrying me away,
It stole but earth; my soul did with thee stay.