XXVI.
THREE DISCOURSES ON ONE TEXT.
1
“It is because I love you so”—It is!
It is because you love me that you tremble,
Like wind-touch'd foliage, at my gentlest kiss:
I fear to kiss thee; thou canst not dissemble:
But as an ancient sibyl, when inspired
By her presiding god, all o'er did quiver,
Like the dash'd surface of a storm-swept river,
And show'd without that she within was fired—
Thou, shaken by the mystic spirit of love,
Betray'st its inward workings to all eyes.
Ah, Sweet! concealment doth the heart behove;
And they who would be blest must stifle sighs:
Then, if thou lov'st me, do not love betray;
But underneath a cloak let us have sunny way.
2
“It is because I love you so”—By Love!
There is more poesy in that sweet phrase
Than in all songs of old, or later days:
A doting sorrow in me it doth move,
And a strange quailing of the heart, which shaketh
Like calmest waters ere the thick rain breaketh
From the sky's clouded breast. Would we had never
Stolen each other's secret with our eyes;
But let it in deep veilings sleep for ever!
A curse awaits on Nature's sympathies;
And they are blest whose souls are cold and free:
And yet I would not, for Eternity,
Cancel one moment of the dreamy past
On which the shadows of our hearts were cast!
3
“It is because I love you so”—It is!
The deadly poison of deep love is in thee,
Which thou hast gather'd from my touch and kiss.
It is because you love: a deity
Featured and form'd for eyes' idolatry,
Though he should greet thee with essential love,
Could not thy being so divinely move
As these my mortal lips, didst thou adore not:
O, hallow'd be the day I sought to win thee!
And the indelible past do thou deplore not;
For though thy passion be now check'd and blighted
By the cold air of present circumstance—
(Poets are Prophets, and dispute with Chance!)
Some hour a sun shall rise, and thy heart's world be lighted.
