Why did you love me? Was it not enough That the world loved you, all the world and I? Or was your heart of so sublime a stuff That it might trifle with inconstancy And love and cease to love and yet not die? Heaven was your throne by right of happiness And Earth your footstool. All things great and high Waited your bidding, love itself no less. Yet, if you deigned to love, if from your place In Heaven you stooped, if, when your heart was moved, A thrill of human pleasure tinged your face, If 'twas in weakness not in strength you loved, Then there was cause to blush. Yet, loving, how Shall you blush less to be apostate now? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE WIFE A-LOST by WILLIAM BARNES AMERICA (1) by WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT THE JOURNEY by EMILY DICKINSON ULTIMA THULE: DEDICATION by HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW UNDER THE SHADE OF THE TREES [MAY 10, 1863] by MARGARET JUNKIN PRESTON THE FOUNDERS OF OHIO by WILLIAM HENRY VENABLE |