XVI
The Golden Fruit
I lacked not Love, I lacked not lovely Love,
But, ah, the apples of Hesperides!
The golden apples and the emerald trees,
The flower-sweet maidens, dancing in the breeze—
Holds Love a blossom with such fruits as these?
I gave up Love, I gave up lovely Love,
And sought the island of enchanted skies,
With little rainbow rifts of seraphs’ eyes,
Round which the flaming sword forever plies
Against the darkened world of rue and sighs.
Alas for Love! alas for lovely Love!
In dreams I heard the beating of his wing;
His soft voice, beautiful as sea in spring,
Mourned through the empty songs the seraphs sing;
Life seemed in sleep more dear than everything.
Take me back, Love; take me back, lovely Love.
Dark winds may drive me o’er thy tyrannous seas—
Life is a world that breaks the thing it frees.
I would be bound in all thy masteries—
Yet, ah, the apples of Hesperides!