Classic Poem

More strange than death to all regrets,
Love gives no tear to passion sped:
Its frozen heart at once forgets
The wronged, the absent, and the dead.
We see the wave that Venus rides, —
We do not see the doom it hides.

Fierce, boundless, fetterless, supreme,
Relentless, glorious, mindless, gay,
Love grants us one supernal dream,
One vision, one ecstatic day;
In fate's dull book one fiery page, —
Of bliss an hour, of woe an age.

Be the red roses never more
Companions to a thought of mine!
Behind me fades the lessening shore,
Above, the stars of midnight shine;
On black and dangerous seas they gleam,
And life is done with doubt and dream.

Pale, spectral shapes of dead desire,
Poor wandering souls of heavenly light,
So lovely in your soft attire,
So coldly pure, so sadly bright,
Henceforth be angels of my fate,
And take the life ye consecrate!

White roses for the cradled head,
The bridal veil, the stainless pall!
When love and sin and grief are dead,
Let the white roses shroud them all!
Ah! bloom for me while time flows on,
And guard my rest when I am gone.