A Lover's Litanies

xix.

It is my curse to see thee and to learn
That I must shun thee, though I blaze and burn
With all this longing, all this fierce delight
Fear-fraught and famish'd for a suitor's right;
A right conceded for a moment's space
And then withdrawn as, amorous face to face,
I dared to clasp thee and to urge a troth
Too sovereign-sweet for one of Adam's race.

xx.

I am a doom-entangled mirthless soul,
Without the power to rid me of the dole
Which, day by day, and nightly evermore
Corrodes my peace! Oh, smile, as once before,
At each wild thought and each discarded plea,
And let thy sentence, let thy suffrance be
That I be reckon'd till the day I die
The sad-eyed Singer of thy fame and thee!

[Illustration: cherub]

Third Litany.

_AD TE CLAMAVI._

Third Litany.

Ad Te Clamavi.

i.

Again, O Love! again I make lament,
And, Arab-like, I pitch my summer-tent
Outside