Love feeds upon the fiery trial,
And hugs the arm that smites;
I bless you for your stern denial,
And for my lonely nights.

If you had heaped my flame with fue,
And been, as I was, blind,
Time might have proved your favour cruel,
Your tenderness unkind.

The longing flesh outwears the spirit,
The body tires the soul;
By giving, we but half inherit,
By holding back, the whole.

The world may keep its brutal fashion,
And crush the rose to death;
Our ecstasy of virgin passion
Will scent our latest breath.

I stood on Sarum's treeless plain,
The waste that careless Nature owns;
Lone tenants of her bleak domain,
Loomed huge and gray the Druid stones.

Upheaved in many a billowy mound
The sea-like, naked turf arose,
Where wandering flocks went nibbling round
The mingled graves of friends and foes.

The Briton, Roman, Saxon, Dane,
This windy desert roamed in turn;
Unmoved these mighty blocks remain
Whose story none that lives may learn.

Erect, half buried, slant or prone,
These awful listeners, blind and dumb,

They crossed the lonely and lamenting sea;
Its moaning seemed but singing. " Wilt thou dare, "
He asked her, " brave the loneliness with me? "
" What loneliness, " she said, " if thou art there? "

Afar and cold on the horizon's rim
Loomed the tall lighthouse, like a ghostly sign;
They sighed not as the shore behind grew dim,
A rose of joy they bore across the brine.

They gained the barren rock, and made their home
Among the wild waves and the sea-birds wild;
The wintry winds blew fierce across the foam,

My fancy travelled back three thousand years
To find the meaning of the ancient days,
And disencumber their simplicity
From the corruptions of a later time.
I fashioned in my mind, the god-like shape
Of Dionysius, mighty conqueror,
Who taught the early nations how to live:
No vulgar Bacchus straddling on a cask
Drunken and bestial, but a king of men;
Noble in intellect, and fair in form,
With ivy and with budding violets crowned,
And bearing on his cheerful face, the glow
Of kindly wisdom and perpetual youth.

Oh, degenerate child of a noble and glorious mother,
Who to the vigour of Rome added the Tyrian's craft!
Romans sternly ruled the worlds they had taken in action,
While the Tyrian taught worlds he had cunningly won.
What thine historical fame? Thou conquerest, true, like a Roman,
Sword in hand; but thy rule savours of Tyrian gold.

One Love there is all roseate-flushed and fair —
This is the love that plucks the fruit of life;
One Love there is with cypress round his hair,
The love that fought and fell in bitter strife:
Not that nor this the Shade that comes to-day
With tender hands to soothe my beating heart, —
But the third Love that gains and gives away,
And in renouncing holds the better part;
His eyes are very sweet, and bright with tears,
Like thine own eyes, my Dearest, wet with love;
He knows that I am weak, and torn with fears,

If I forget, —
May joy pledge this weak heart to sorrow!
If I forget, —
May my soul's coloured summer borrow
The hueless tones of storm and rain,
Of ruth and terror, shame and pain, —
If I forget!

Though you forget, —
There is no binding code for beauty;
Though you forget, —
Love was your charm, but not your duty;
And life's worst breeze must never bring
A ruffle to your silken wing, —
Though you forget.

If I forget, —

Whither is bound yon ship? A Sidonian company mans her,
And she hails from the North, loaded with amber and tin.
Dandle her softly, winds; and be thou merciful, Neptune,
In some sheltering cove find her a potable rill.
Dedicated to you, ye Gods, is surely the merchant,
Wealth he seeks; but shares with the good vessel his gain.

She gathered at her slender waist
The beauteous robe she wore;
Its folds a golden belt embraced,
One rose-hued gem it bore.

The girdle shrank; its lessening round
Still kept the shining gem,
But now her flowing locks it bound,
A lustrous diadem.

And narrower still the circlet grew;
Behold! a glittering band,
Its roseate diamond set anew,
Her neck's white column spanned.

Suns rise and set; the straining clasp
The shortened links resist,
Yet flashes in a bracelet's grasp
The diamond, on her wrist.

Break, heavy heart, and rid me of this pain,
This pain that still increaseth day by day:
By day with sighs I spend myself in vain;
In vain by night with tears I waste away.
Away I waste with tears, by night in vain:
Tears, sighs, by night, by day, increase this pain.

Mine eyes no eyes, but fountains of my tears;
My tears no tears, but floods to moist my heart;
My heart no heart, but harbour of my fears;
My fears no fears, but feelings of my smart.
My smart, my fears, my heart, my tears, mine eyes,