Classic Poem

IF YOU were with me — as you're not, of course,
I'd taste the elegant tortures of Despair
With a slow, languid, long-refining tongue;
Puzzle for days on one particular stare,
Or if you knew a word's peculiar force,
Or what you looked like when you were quite young.

You'd lift me heaven-high — till a word grated.
Dash me hell-deep — oh that luxurious Pit,
Fatly and well encushioned with self-pity,
Where Love's an epicure not quickly sated!
What mournful musics wander over it,
Faint-blown from some long-lost celestial city!

Such bitter joyousness I'd have, and action,
Were you here — be no more the fool who broods
On true Adventure till he wakes her scorning —
But we're too petty for such noble warning.
And Ifind just as perfect satisfaction
In analyzing these, and other moods!