Confession of my Faith

I.

Love, thou art sweet, but thou art not for me:
Only to love thee more than other men
Is mine, a fleeting vision now and then
Of garments passing rapidly to see,
But never in thine arms alas! to be,
Never to hold thee in a close embrace
And only see the eyes and not the face,
So near that all things else are forced to flee
Save the expression of the life — to die
Ten thousand deaths ecstatic in a kiss,
Low at annihilation's feet to lie
Unconscious in abandonment of bliss —
The lovers who are capable of this
By fate are left for loss of it to sigh.

II.

Love crowns the careless men who seek her not
With hand capricious, but she leaveth those
Who loyally the first her service chose
With tears the path of every day to blot;
She leaveth them, it seemeth, quite forgot;
The current of her favour onward flows
And over heads of former victims goes
In haste to fertilize some other spot.
But, O my brothers, let us yet be true,
And though she slays us, gives us no relief,
Yet notwithstanding let us be the chief
Of those who on the earth are found to do
Her work, and prominently bring to view
The lineaments that smite us low with grief.
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