Love in Exile

Since ye have banished Beauty from my soul,
I wander in a faint and drear amaze;
Gone are the ancient, the familiar ways,
Strained the fine bonds of sufferance and control.

The utterness of sorrow none can know
Who have one help, assured, tho' distant far;
One fiery love, concentred to a star—
Night should be sombre that such stars may show.

They venture evil that they little guess,
Who hide that shining mercy from our eyes;
What though it mark a dreamer's paradise?
It is a world 'twixt us and nothingness.

Since they are gone, the blissful sights and sounds,
All hideous forms of ill assail my mind;
I hear the Demon's subtle speech behind,
I see the Present's atheistic bounds.

And then, I cast a shuddering, pitying look
Upon the fall'n—perhaps their virtue strove
To bridge th' abyss with daring and high love,
And, failing, perished in the leap they took.

In this divorce from Beauty lies a wrong—
I must deny her, I who hold her faith
Deep in my heart, and fervent unto death,
While she is outlawed from my sight and song.

My mortal frame is welded to her might,
And my soul worships, as a captive does,
Who murmurs holy words 'mid heathen foes,
While cruel hands forbid the happy rite.

A sentry, forced to keep a foreign door,
A soldier to an alien banner sold,
A priest to whom the shrine is void and cold,
Are of the things men mock at, or deplore.

Eager to check, and tireless to reprove,
Pause, ere you scarce the meanest from his right,—
God gives to each his measure of delight,
To every nature its appropriate love.
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