No! such eyes of magic splendour,
Lips so rosy and so warm,
Such a child, so sweet and tender,
Never did the poet form.
Basilisks and vampires gory,
Dragons, monsters of the earth,
Suchlike evil beasts of story
In the poet’s fire have birth.
But thyself, thy wiles insidious,
And thy face, so sweet and staid,
And thy kindly looks perfidious,—
These the poet never made.
18.
Gleams my love in beauty’s splendour,
Like the child of ocean foam;
As his bride my mistress tender
Is a stranger taking home.
Though ’tis treason, don’t abuse it,
Heart, thou much-enduring one!
Bear it, bear it, and excuse it,
What the beauteous fool hath done.
19.
I’ll not be angry, though my heart should break,
Evermore lost one! no complaint I’ll make.
Though thou may’st sparkle ’neath thy diamonds bright,
No ray can pierce thy heart’s unceasing night.
I’ve known it long. In vision saw I thee,
How night thy heart doth fill unceasingly,
And how the serpent at thy heart doth gnaw,—
How wretched, love, thou art, too well I saw.