Classic Poem

WHEREIN HE TREATS OF LOVE IN EXTREMIS

Remarking in those orbs the orb of light
Where Love serenely rules that agitates
My own, the sick heart quits the soul's dim gates
Once more upon her paradisal flight;
Perceiving, then, how bitter-sweet her plight,
And the world-tangling web which she creates,
She sighs for thwarted love and hesitates,
Recalling the curb's tooth, the fanged spur's bite.
By these two mixed irreconcilables she,
With frozen or with fiery wishes filled,
Stands torn forever in a blind dispute:
Seldom in bright, often in black thought stilled,
But most repenting her audacity,
For of such seed must spring just such a fruit!