So to our tremulous
Souls come the emulous
Agents of love; through whose power
All that is best in us,
All that is beautiful,
Selfless and dutiful,
Is manifest in us,
Even as the scent of a flower.
VII
Taking her hand he says:
What makes you beautiful?
Answer, now, answer!—
Is it that dutiful
Souls are all beautiful?
Is it romance or
Beauty of spirit,
Which souls, that merit,
Of heaven inherit?—
Have you an answer?
She, roguishly:
What makes you lovable?
Answer, now, answer!—
Is it not provable
That man is lovable
Just because chance, or
Nature, makes woman
Love him?—Her human
Part’s to illumine.—
Have you an answer?
VIII
Then, regarding him seriously, she continues:
Could I recall every joy that befell me
There in the past with its anguish and bliss,
Here in my heart it hath whispered to tell me,—
They were no joys like this.
Were it not well if our love could forget them,
Veiling the Was with the dawn of the Is?
Dead with the past we should never regret them,
Being no joys like this.