Classic Poem

WHEREIN HE EXPLAINS WHY THE LOVER TURNS PALE AS DEATH BEFORE THE BELOVED, AND YET JOYS IN IT

When through the eyes deep in the heart's core looms
The fatal image, other thoughts depart;
Those virtues which are rooted in the heart
Leave all the limbs like dead things out of tombs.
From the first miracle a second blooms,
For the great function (such is Nature's art),
Routed and fugitive, will reach some part
Which feeds revenge and soothes the exile's dooms.
Wherefore the colour of death's in both our faces,
Because the vigour which they showed alive
Is not in any of its familiar places —
So in the memory do these things survive
Of that day when two lovers and their state
Recalled my own too long ambiguous fate.