O all fair lovers about the world, There is none of you, none, that shall comfort me. My thoughts are as dead things, wrecked and whirled Round and round in a gulf of the sea; And still, through the sound and the straining stream, Through the coil and chafe, they gleam in a dream, The bright fine lips so cruelly curled, And strange swift eyes where the soul sits free. Free, without pity, withheld from woe, Ignorant; fair as the eyes are fair. Would I have you change now, change at a blow, Startled and stricken, awake and aware? Yea, if I could, would I have you see My very love of you filling me, And know my soul to the quick, as I know The likeness and look of your throat and hair? I shall not change you. Nay, though I might, Would I change my sweet one love with a word? I had rather your hair should change in a night, Clear now as the plume of a black bright bird; Your face fail suddenly, cease, turn grey, Die as a leaf that dies in a day. I will keep my soul in a place out of sight, Far off, where the pulse of it is not heard. Far off it walks, in a bleak blown space, Full of the sound of the sorrow of years. I have woven a veil for the weeping face, Whose lips have drunken the wine of tears; I have found a way for the failing feet, A place for slumber and sorrow to meet; There is no rumour about the place, Nor light, nor any that sees or hears. I have hidden my soul out of sight, and said "Let none take pity upon thee, none Comfort thy crying: for lo, thou art dead, Lie still now, safe out of sight of the sun. Have I not built thee a grave, and wrought Thy grave-clothes on thee of grievous thought, With soft spun verses and tears unshed, And sweet light visions of things undone? "I have given thee garments and balm and myrrh, And gold, and beautiful burial things. But thou, be at peace now, make no stir; Is not thy grave as a royal king's? Fret not thyself though the end were sore; Sleep, be patient, vex me no more. Sleep; what hast thou to do with her? The eyes that weep, with the mouth that sings?" Where the dead red leaves of the years lie rotten, The cold old crimes and the deeds thrown by, The misconceived and the misbegotten, I would find a sin to do ere I die, Sure to dissolve and destroy me all through, That would set you higher in heaven, serve you And leave you happy, when clean forgotten, As a dead man out of mind, am I. Your lithe hands draw me, your face burns through me, I am swift to follow you, keen to see; But love lacks might to redeem or undo me; As I have been, I know I shall surely be; "What should such fellows as I do?" Nay, My part were worse if I chose to play; For the worst is this after all; if they knew me, Not a soul upon earth would pity me.