Or this, or somewhat like to this, I spoke, When I did see her weep so ruefully; For sure my love should ne'er induce the front And mask of Hate, whom woful ailments Of unavailing tears and heart deep moans Feed and envenom, as the milky blood Of hateful herbs a subtle-fanged snake. Shall Love pledge Hatred in her bitter draughts, And batten on his poisons? Love forbid! Love passeth not the threshold of cold Hate, And Hate is strange beneath the roof of Love. O Love, if thou be'st Love, dry up these tears Shed for the love of Love; for tho' mine image, The subject of thy power, be cold in her, Yet, like cold snow, it melteth in the source Of these sad tears, and feeds their downward flow. So Love, arraign'd to judgment and to death, Received unto himself a part of blame. Being guiltless, as an innocent prisoner, Who when the woful sentence hath been past, And all the clearness of his fame hath gone Beneath the shadow of the curse of men, First falls asleep in swoon. Wherefrom awaked And looking round upon his tearful friends, Forthwith and in his agony conceives A shameful sense as of a cleaving crime-- For whence without some guilt should such grief be? So died that hour, and fell into the abysm Of forms outworn, but not to be outworn, Who never hail'd another worth the Life That made it sensible. So died that hour, Like odour wrapt into the winged wind Borne into alien lands and far away. There be some hearts so airy-fashioned, That in the death of love, if e'er they loved, On that sharp ridge of utmost doom ride highly Above the perilous seas of change and chance; Nay, more, holds out the lights of cheerfulness; As the tall ship, that many a dreary year Knit to some dismal sandbank far at sea, All through the lifelong hours of utter dark, Showers slanting light upon the dolorous wave. For me all other Hopes did sway from that Which hung the frailest: falling, they fell too, Crush'd link on link into the beaten earth, And Love did walk with banish'd Hope no more, It was ill-done to part ye, Sisters fair; Love's arms were wreathed about the neck of Hope, And Hope kiss'd Love, and Love drew in her breath In that close kiss, and drank her whisper'd tales. They said that Love would die when Hope was gone, And Love mourned long, and sorrowed after Hope; At last she sought out memory, and they trod The same old paths where Love had walked with Hope, And Memory fed the soul of Love with tears. II