onies by rote.
As if I loved it, early and late
I make familiar with my fate,
And feed, with fascinated will,
On very dregs of finish'd ill.
I think, she's near him now, alone,
With wardship and protection none;
Alone, perhaps, in the hindering stress
Of airs that clasp him with her dress,
They wander whispering by the wave;
And haply now, in some sea-cave,
Where the ribb'd sand is rarely trod,
They laugh, they kiss, Oh, God! oh, God!
There comes a smile acutely sweet
Out of the picturing dark; I meet
The ancient frankness of her gaze,
That soft and heart-surprising blaze
Of great goodwill and innocence.
And perfect joy proceeding thence!
Ah! made for earth's delight, yet such
The mid-sea air's too gross to touch.
At thought of which, the soul in me
Is as the bird that bites a bee,
And darts abroad on frantic wing,
Tasting the honey and the sting;
And, moaning where all round me sleep
Amidst the moaning of the deep,
I start at midnight from my bed--
And have no right to strike him dead.
What world is this that I am in,
Where chance turns sanctity to sin!
'Tis crime henceforward to desire
The only good; the sacred fire
That sunn'd the universe is hell!
I hear a Voice which argues well:
'The Heaven hard has scorn'd your cry;
Fall down and worship me, and I
Will give you peace; go and profane
This pangful love, so pure, so vain.
And thereby win forgetfulness
And pardon of the spirit's excess,
Which soar'd too nigh that jealous Heaven
Ever, save thus, to be forgiven.
No Gospel has come down that cures
With better gain a loss like yours.
Be pious! Give the beggar pelf,
And love your neighbour as yourself!
You, who yet love, though all is o'er,
And she'll ne'er be your neighbour more,
With soul which can in pity smile
That aught with such a measure vile
As self should be at all named "love!"
Your sanctity the priests reprove;
Your case of grief they wholly miss;
The Man of Sorrows names not this.
The years, they say, graft love divine
On the lopp'd stock of love like thine;
The wild tree dies not, but converts.
So be it; but the lopping hurts,
The graft takes tardily! Men stanch
Meantime with earth the bleeding branch.
There's nothing heals one woman's loss,
And lightens life's eternal cross
With intermission of sound rest,
Like lying in another's breast.
The cure is, to your thinking, low!
Is not life all, henceforward, so?'
Ill Voice, at least thou calm'st my mood:
I'll sleep! But, as