Heloise to Abelard, 22

No more will I endeavor to arouse,
By recollection's soft, seductive art,
The guilty fondness of your suffering heart;
To fate's decree my broken spirit bows.
I think of you no longer as the spouse,
But as the father, set from men apart,
Insensible to passion's poison dart,
The holy steward in God's sacred house.
My peace was born of anguish, but it lives,
A phenix risen from love's funeral pyre.
The path to Duty is the path to Bliss:
There is no pleasure save what virtue gives.
And yet—again to touch that mouth of fire,
To lose the world, and find it, in your kiss!
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