Classic Poem

What, Hero, is this madness of the brain,
That, at the melting of a woman's eye,
Will count it even heaven for love to die,
And even grudge the losing of a pain,
If through all toil or sorrow it may gain
The flitting smile whose light is ecstasy?
'Tis sure this thread, of all life's mystery,
That to unravel we must seek in vain!

For this our very lives we fling away;
And if, one hour, upon the favored breast
Our head caressed may lie, we care not then.
In that Elysium, what the world may say;
Our one regret that, for such fevered rest,
We have not other lives to lose again.