That very time I saw, but thou couldst not,
Flying between the cold moon and the earth,
Cupid all armed: a certain aim he took
At a fair vestal throned by the west,
And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,
As it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts:
But I might see young Cupid's fiery shaft
Quenched in the chaste beams of the watery moon,
And the imperial votaress passed on,
In maiden meditation, fancy-free.
Yet marked I where the bolt of Cupid fell:
It fell upon a little western flower,
Before milk-white, now purple with love's wound,

This reward have I for my love and pain:
To feel through pain the sweet love deeper grow;
The more I sacrifice, the more to know
Of the pure secrets of love's inner fane.
Yes, this is great and worth sharp pangs,—to gain
Exquisite tender priceless knowledge so
Of how the passionate heart of Love can glow
Immortally, while mortal we remain.

To feel my love wax deeper day by day:
This is love's tender and divine reward;
To find that perfect love no boundary keeps,
But ever with inevitable sword
That hurls all base and evil things away

Because my soul is strong, but thine is as a flower;
Because I am a cloud that stoops above thy bower
With thunder in its song:
Because thou art so sweet, and full of beauty gracious;
Because my soul is large, and through its vistas spacious
Roam dreams of pain all day and all night long:

Because we are alike in nothing, and can never
Be more like than the flower and cloud that shields for ever
The simple flower and fair:
Because the bitter god, the singing god Apollo,
Is ever unto me the one god whom I follow,
I love past loving thy black bayless hair.

What I would ask thee is to let me give—
Give love, give help, give perfect tenderness.
I ask no flower: I ask no soft caress:
But only just to worship while I live.
Love's dreams alas! are often fugitive:
Only the love whose chief joy is to bless
Outlasts life's anguish and its stormy stress;
Love that bestows, not hoping to receive.

Let me love so. And let me sometimes see
Thy face.—God sets ten million stars each night
Upon the brow of heaven to give man light;
Do thou my sweet eternal star-love be:

If ever comes the day when thou dost fail
My heart's deep inner truth to understand,—
If sorrow invades us,—if this songful land
Be ever darkened and love's skies turn pale
While summer's bright leaves tremble at the gale,—
Remember then—remember evermore—
I loved thee, loved thee, loved thee; through the roar
Of evil wintry winds, let that wild wail
“I loved thee, loved thee, loved thee,” reach thine ear.
By heaven, by God, if all else were untrue,—
If all the stars in heaven's height quaked for fear
And tremor shook the sea's eternal blue,—

Thou hast so little share or part in me
And that, God knows, is why I love thee so!
Just as the great white waves that shoreward go
After their journey o'er the bitter sea
Love past all speech the emerald-shining lea
And the blue river-waves that towards them flow,—
And love beyond all human words the glow
Of pink cliff-thyme, and singing of the bee.

Thou art the river bringing to the deep
Thoughts of the flowers that by its banks are seen,
Woven in white amid the entangled green,—
Dreams of the meadows where the daisies sleep.

The Summer fluttered south, and gathered all its flowers
From English woods and hills, and English lanes and bowers;
Soft leaves from every tree:
All these it gathered up, bright fragrant laughing legions,
And sought with footstep glad the southern stormless regions,—
But on a sudden paused and looked for thee.

Love saw sweet rest at last spread meadowlike before him
And felt the robe of death fall soft and dewlike o'er him
And knew what peace may be
Within the arms of death; but, as he sighed for pleasure

I think a task so sweet, and yet so strangely solemn,
Was never given to man.—Not with bright shaft and column
A temple high to raise:
No sculptured stone to blend with dreams of love and passion:
Not through sweet music-chords to wander in wild fashion:
Not by large song to win the Epic bays.

Only to sing thy face: this is the task Love giveth.
To sing the soul as well that in the deep eyes liveth:
To sing,—as best I can.
The task seems simple at first; yet, as the work proceedeth
It seems, the while the heart is pierced of love and bleedeth,

I want thee, dear, to know—if my life's work is over
Nearly,—how proud I am that as thy songful lover
I entered these last lists.
Of all strong final work this I would choose the sureliest:
A true man sings the best, as ever too the pureliest,
With love's gold fetters round about his wrists.

There is not any work,—if this indeed be nearly
The end of all,—that I with vision keen, and clearly
Discerning all, would take
Sooner than this. To sing thy girlish beauty peerless
And then to pass,—content and satisfied and fearless,—

Was there a thought in God's heart when he died
Upon the Cross, that all might be in vain?
That after all his immemorial pain
The mocking world his love-suit might deride?
That she might nestle by another's side,—
That other feet love's temple might profane,
And other hearts of little worth might gain
The poor frail doubting faint heart of his Bride?—

Was this, and nothing else, the death-pang true,
The awful darkness darkening sea and land?
To give without reserve; although he knew
Whose blow would drive the last nail through his hand.—