Classic Poem

O Love ! O beauteous Love!
— Thy home is made for all sweet things,
A dwelling for thine own soft dove
— And souls as spotless as her wings;
There summer ceases never:
The trees are rich with luscious fruits,
— The bowers are full of joyous throngs,
And gales that come from Heaven's own lutes
— And rivulets whose streams are songs
Go murmuring on for ever!

O Love! O wretched Love!
— Thy home is made for bitter care;
And sounds are in thy myrtle grove
— Of late repentance, long despair,
Of feigning and forsaking:
Thy banquet is the doubt and fear
— That come, we know not whence or why
The smile that hardly masks a tear,
— The laughter that is half a sigh,
The heart that jests in breaking!

O Love! O faithless Love!
— Thy home is like the roving star
Which seems so fair, so far above
— The world where woes and sorrows are;
But could we wander thither,
There's nothing but another earth,
— As dark and restless as our own,
Where misery is child of mirth,
— And every heart is born to groan,
And every flower to wither!