Classic Poem

Love , since it is thy will that I return
'Neath her usurped control
Who is thou know'st how beautiful and proud;
Enlighten thou her heart, so bidding burn
Thy flame within her soul
That she rejoice not when my cry is loud.
Be thou but once endowed
With sense of the new peace, and of this fire,
And of the scorn wherewith I am despised,
And wherefore death is my most fierce desire;
And then thou'lt be apprised
Of all. So if thou slay me afterward,
Anguish unburthened shall make death less hard.

O Lord, thou knowest very certainly
That thou didst make me apt
To serve thee. But I was not wounded yet,
When under heaven I beheld openly
The face which thus hath rapt
My soul. Then all my spirits ran elate
Upon her will to wait.
And she, the peerless one who o'er all worth
Is still her proper beauty's worshipper,
Made semblance then to guide them safely forth:
And they put faith in her:
Till, gathering them within her garment all,
She turned their blessed peace to tears and gall.

Then I (for I could hear how they complained,)
As sympathy impelled,
Full oft to seek her presence did arise.
And mine own soul (which better had refrained)
So much my strength upheld
That I could steadily behold her eyes.
This in thy knowledge lies,
Who then didst call me with so mild a face
That I hoped solace from my greater load:
And when she turned the key on my dark place,
Such ruth thy grace bestowed
Upon my grief, and in such piteous kind,
That I had strength to bear, and was resign'd.

For love of the sweet favour's comforting
Did I become her thrall;
And still her every movement gladdened me
With triumph that I served so sweet a thing:
Pleasures and blessings all
I set aside, my perfect hope to see:
Till her proud contumely—
That so mine aim might rest unsatisfied—
Covered the beauty of her countenance.
So straightway fell into my living side,
To slay me, the swift lance:
While she rejoiced and watched my bitter end,
Only to prove what succour thou wouldst send.

I therefore, weary with my love's constraint,
To death's deliverance ran,
That out of terrible grief I might be brought:
For tears had broken me and left me faint
Beyond the lot of man,
Until each sigh must be my last, I thought.
Yet still this longing wrought
So much of torment for my soul to bear,
That with the pang I swooned and fell to earth.
Then, as in trance, 'twas whispered at mine ear,
How in this constant girth
Of anguish, I indeed at length must die:
So that I dreaded Love continually.

Master, thou knowest now
The life which in thy service I have borne:
Not that I tell it thee to disallow
Control, who still to thy behest am sworn.
Yet if through this my vow
I remain dead, nor help they will confer,
Do thou at least, for God's sake, pardon her.