COME, sweetheart, hear me! I have loved thee well, God knoweth. Through all these years my holiest thoughts, Like those pure doves nurtured in antique temples, Have fluttered ever round thine image fair, And found in thee their shrine. No tenderest hope Of mine, which hath not warmed its radiant wings Within that heaven, thy presence, and drank strength And sunshine from it. How hast thou responded? Sometimes thine eyes, like Eden gates unclosed, Would pour such beams of sacred passion down, That all my soul was flooded with its joy, And I, methought, breathed as immortals breathe, A deathless light and ether. Then, when most I dreamed me happy, a strange change would come, Sudden as strange; some wind of cold caprice, Blowing, I knew not whence, an icy cloud Upbore, and o'er the splendor of thy brow, Of late so frankly beautiful, there hung Ominous shadows, crossed by gleams of scorn; Trifles as slight as eider-down have power To move or sting thee, and a swarm of humors, Gendered of morbid fancy, buzz and hiss About some vacant chambers of thy mind, By idle thoughts left open, making harsh, Rude discord, where, if healthful will had sway, Angels, perchance, might lift celestial voices! Love, love, thou wrong'st thyself, and that sweet nature, Sweet at the core, for all such small despites, Wherewith kind heaven endowed thee; yet, beware! Caprice, though frail its shafts, a poisoned barb Hath bound on each; their points are sharp to wound, And the wounds rankle! Giants great as Love Have perished merely of an insect's venom, And who through all God's universe can touch Love's pulseless heart to warmth and life again? | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...SONNET TO MRS. REYNOLD'S CAT by JOHN KEATS THE STUDY OF A SPIDER by JOHN BYRNE LEICESTER WARREN THE BOTTOM DRAWER by AMELIA EDITH HUDDLESTON BARR THE AUTHOR'S PARTING ADDRESS TO THE MUSE by BERNARD BARTON THE WANDERER: 5. IN HOLLAND: THE CASTLE OF KING MACBETH by EDWARD ROBERT BULWER-LYTTON |