A veil for our seclusion, close as Night's,
Where secure sleep may kill thine innocent lights;
Sleep, the fresh dew of languid love, the rain
Whose drops quench kisses till they burn again.
And we will talk, until thought's melody
Become too sweet for utterance, and it die
In words, to live again in looks, which dart
With thrilling tone into the voiceless heart,
Harmonizing silence without a sound.

560

Our breath shall intermix, our bosoms bound,

565

And our veins beat together; and our lips,

With other eloquence than words, eclipse

The soul that burns between them; and the wells

Which boil under our being's inmost cells,

The fountains of our deepest life, shall be
Confused in passion's golden purity,

570

As mountain-springs under the morning Sun.
We shall become the same, we shall be one
Spirit within two frames, oh! wherefore two?

One passion in twin-hearts, which grows and grew,

575

Till like two meteors of expanding flame,

Those spheres instinct with it become the same

Touch, mingle, are transfigured; ever still
Burning, yet ever inconsumable:

In one another's substance finding food,
Like flames too pure and light and unimbued
To nourish their bright lives with baser prey,
Which point to Heaven and cannot pass away:
One hope within two wills, one will beneath
Two overshadowing minds, one life, one death,
One Heaven, one Hell, one immortality,

580

585

And one annihilation. Woe is me!

The winged words on which my soul would pierce
Into the height of love's rare Universe

Are chains of lead around its flight of fire.

I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire!

Weak Verses, go, kneel at your Sovereign's feet, And say: "We are the masters of thy slave ;

"What wouldest thou with us and ours and thine? Then call your sisters from Oblivion's cave,

590

595

All singing loud: "Love's very pain is sweet, "But its reward is in the world divine

"Which, if not here, it builds beyond the grave.”

So shall ye live when I am there. Then haste
Over the hearts of men, until ye meet

600

Marina, Vanna, Primus, and the rest,

And bid them love each other and be bless'd:

And leave the troop which errs, and which reproves,
And come and be my guest,—for I am Love's.

ΤΟ

MUSIC, when soft voices die,
Vibrates in the memory

Odours, when sweet violets sicken,
Live within the sense they quicken.

Rose-leaves, when the rose is dead,
Are heaped for the beloved's bed;

And so thy thoughts, when thou art gone,
Love itself shall slumber on.

1821.

5

V.

I love all that thou lovest,

Spirit of Delight!

The fresh Earth in new leaves dressed,

And the starry night;

Autumn evening, and the morn

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