[Pascal]
Thou lovedst life, but not to brand it thine
(O rich in all forborne felicities!),
Nor use it with marauding power, to seize
And stain the sweet earth's blue horizon-line.
Virgin the grape might in the trellis twine
Where thou hadst long ago an hour of ease,
And foot of thine across the unpressed leas
Went light as some Idæan foot divine.
Spirit so abstinent, in thy deeps lay
What passion of possession? Day by day
Was there no thirst upon thee, sharp and pure,
In forward sea-like surges unforgot?
Yes: and in life and death those joys endure
More blessedly, that men can name them not.
[Borderlands]
Through all the evening,
All the virginal long evening,
Down the blossomed aisle of April it is dread to walk alone;
For there the intangible is nigh, the lost is ever-during;
And who would suffer again beneath a too divine alluring,
Keen as the ancient drift of sleep on dying faces blown?
Yet in the valley,
At a turn of the orchard alley,
When a wild aroma touched me in the moist and moveless air,
Like breath indeed from out Thee, or as airy vesture round Thee,
Then was it I went faintly, for fear I had nearly found Thee,
O Hidden, O Perfect, O Desired! O first and final Fair!