Is it because the love we have and cherish
Born with us seems, and as ourselves shall last?
Part of our lives, we can not let it perish
Out of our present’s future or its past?
Yet, all was changed; and, still, I did not wonder
That, robed in vaster splendor, broke the dawn:
Nor marvel that, beside my feet and under,
Each flower seemed fairer than the flower gone.
The wild bird’s silvery warble seemed completer;
A whiter magic filled the morn and noon,
And night—each night!—seemed holier grown and sweeter
With Babylonian witchcraft of the moon.—
Is love an emanation? whose ideal
Communicates its beauty?—Is it moved
Through some strange means to consecrate the real?
Making the world the worthier to be loved?
ROMANTIC LOVE
I
Is it not sweet to know?—
The moon hath told me so—
That in some lost romance, love,
Long lost to us below,
A knight with casque and lance, love,
A thousand years ago,
I kissed you from a trance, love?—
The moon hath told me so.
II
Or were it strange to wis?—
The stars have told me this—
That once a nightingale, love,
Sang on an Isle of Greece;
From whose melodious wail, love,
Its song’s wild harmonies,
Was born a spirit-woman—
Yourself! whom I, a human,
Made mine!... So goes the tale, love!—
The stars have told me this.