FORTUNATE LOVE: 3. IN CHURCH-TIME by EDMUND WILLIAM GOSSE

I TOOK my flute among the primroses
That lined the hill along the brown church-wall,
For she was there; till shades began to fall,
I piped my songs out like a bird at ease,
When suddenly the distant litanies
Ceased, and she came, and passed beyond recall,
And left me throbbing, heart and lips and all,
And vanished down the vistaed cypress-trees;
Ah! sweet, that motion of harmonious limbs
Drove all my folly hence, but left me faint!
Oh! be not, my desire, so wholly saint,
That I must woo thee to the rhythm of hymns!
Ah, me! my dizzy brain dissolves and swims!
And all my body thrills with fond constraint!

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