My spotless love hovers with white wings
About the temple of the proudest frame,
Where blaze those lights fairest of earthly things
Which clear our clouded world with brightest flame.
M'ambitious thoughts confined in her face
Affect no honor, but what she can give me;
My hopes do rest in limits of her grace;
I weigh no comfort unless she relieve me.
For she that can my heart imparadize
Holds in her fairest hand what dearest is:
My Fortune's wheel, the circle of her eyes,
Whose rolling grace deign once a turn of bliss.

Indeed this very love which is my boast,
And which, when rising up from breast to brow,
Doth crown me with ruby large enow
To draw men's eyes and prove the inner cost,--
This love even, all my worth, to the uttermost,
I should not love withal, unless that thou
Hadst set me an example, shown me how,
When first thine earnest eyes with mine were crossed,
And love called love. And thus, I cannot speak
Of love even, as good thing of my own:
Thy soul hath snatched up mine all faint and weak,
And placed it by thee on a golden throne,--

In truth, oh Love, with what a boyish kind
Thou doest proceed in thy most serious ways:
That when the heav'n to thee his best displays,
Yet of that best thou leav'st the best behind.

For like a child that some fair book doth find,
With gilded leaves or colored vellum plays,
Or at the most on some find picture stays,
But never heeds the fruit of writer's mind:

So when thou saw'st in Nature's cabinet
Stella, thou straight lookst babies in her eyes,
In her cheek's pit thou didst thy pitfall set:

And therefore if to love can be desert,
I am not all unworthy. Cheeks as pale
As these you see, and trembling knees that fail
To bear the burden of a heavy heart,--
This weary minstrel-life that once was girt
To climb Aornus, and can scarce avail
To pipe now 'gainst the valley nightingale
A melancholy music,--why advert
To these things? O Belovèd, it is plain
I am not of thy worth nor for thy place!
And yet, because I love thee, I obtain
From that same love this vindicating grace,
To live on still in love, and yet in vain,--

Warmed by her hand and shadowed by her hair
As close she leaned and poured her heart through thee,
Whereof the articulate throbs accompany
The smooth black stream that makes thy whiteness fair,—
Sweet fluttering sheet, even of her breath aware,—
Oh let thy silent song disclose to me
That soul wherewith her lips and eyes agree
Like married music in Love's answering air.
Fain had I watched her when, at some fond thought,
Her bosom to the writing closelier press'd,
And her breast's secrets peered into her breast;

Yet, love, mere love, is beautiful indeed
And worthy of acceptation. Fire is bright,
Let temple burn, or flax; an equal light
Leaps in the flame from cedar-plank or weed:
And love is fire. And when I say at need
I love thee...mark!...I love thee--in thy sight
I stand transfigured, glorified aright,
With conscience of the new rays that proceed
Out of my face toward thine. There's nothing low
In love, when love the lowest: meanest creatures
Who love God, God accepts while loving so.

O then I love and draw this weary breath,
For her the cruel Fair, within whose brow
I written find the sentence of my death
In unkind letters, wrought she cares not how.
O thou that rul'st the confines of the night,
Laughter-loving Goddess, worldly pleasures' Queen,
Intenerate that heart that sets so light
The truest love that ever yet was seen.
And cause her leave to triumph in this wise
Upon the prostrate spoil of that poor heart
That serves a trophy to her conquering eyes
And music their glory to the world impart.

Love, born in Greece, of late fled from his native place,
Forc'd by a tedious proof, that Turkish harden'd heart
Is no fit mark to pierce with his fine pointed dart,
And pleas'd with our soft peace, stayed here his flying race.

But finding these north climes do coldly him embrace,
Not used to frozen clips, he strave to find some part
Where with most ease and warmth he might employ his art:
At length he perch'd himself in Stella's joyful face,

Whose fair skin, beamy eyes, like morning sun on snow,

Some ladies love the jewels in Love's zone,
And gold-tipped darts he hath for painless play
In idle scornful hours he flings away;
And some that listen to his lute's soft tone
Do love to vaunt the silver praise their own;
Some prize his blindfold sight; and there be they
Who kissed his wings which brought him yesterday
And thank his wings to-day that he is flown.
My lady only loves the heart of Love:
Therefore Love's heart, my lady, hath for thee
His bower of unimagined flower and tree:
There kneels he now, and all-anhungered of

Love in a humor play'd the prodigal
And bade my Senses to a solemn feast;
Yet, more to grace the company withal,
Invites my Heart to be the chiefest guest.
No other drink would serve this glutton's turn
But precious tears distilling from mine eyne,
Which with my sighs this epicure doth burn,
Quaffing carouses in this costly wine;
Where, in his cups o'ercome with foul excess,
Straightways he plays a swaggering ruffian's part,
And at the banquet in his drunkenness
Slew his dear friend, my kind and truest Heart.