I AM no weaker since I loved you—no, Nor shall be weaker if you love me not. Rivers from ancient secret hill-springs flow Into the sea, in the deep sea forgot. From unremembered springs my life flows down: Yours rises o'er me like a gray-wall'd town. Sunrise among your towers builds loveliness: Men praise you for it. Trees against your walls Wave light and shadow, and the winds confess Your beauty, and each singing bird that calls, Calls, calls at eve. ... And I flow noteless by, Washing your towers with soundless melody. They frown on me from proud sun-fronting height, But your bent willows kiss me as I pass. Over me shout your trumpets of delight, But in me trail the fingers of your grass. Proudly and tenderly you rise: I move Seaward, and sing your beauty and your love. I am no weaker since I loved you—no, Nor shall be weaker if you love me not. I shall move seaward still as sea-birds go, Your towered beauty loved and unforgot. I shall not lonely and unmastered lie, If you love never me, or loving die. But as a river moving towards the deep Past slumbrous hamlet and mute graveyard flows, Or tall dark ruins where ev'n shadows sleep— And then one with unmemoried ocean grows, Busy with ships. ... So shall I pass 'neath trees And towers, rich-laden towards rich-laden seas. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...STANZAS FOR MUSIC (1) by GEORGE GORDON BYRON TO MR. MONTGOMERY; OCCASIONED BY ... ATTACK ON HIS POEMS by LUCY AIKEN INDIA by ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD THE SPIDER AND THE BEE (A TALE FOR THE TIMES) by LOUISA SARAH BEVINGTON PASTURES by MARGARET PERKINS BRIGGS |