University of Virginia Library

What is love? The fevered hand,
The palpitating heart,
The visions light as airy bells,
That buoy the inexperienced wish,
And clothe in transient paradise
The common life of every day,
Until necessity becomes a pain;
When the voice is only heard in song,
Deliciously exulting, like a bird
Full of summer's golden hours,—
Or weeping passionately loud
Unto the pillowed night?
And is this love?
Shy girlhood answers “yes.”
Or is it the gentler harmony
Of mind and act and hope,—
A welding up of careworn truths
With all the beautiful and good,—
A binding link of confidence,—
A staff in the traveller's hand,
A music to the soldier's march
That charms his weariness,—
An interbreath of soul with soul
Of which all life is typical?
Oh, such hath our God made love!
He, the youth who wooed of old,
Her who is now forgot by all,
What time the cricket's chirm succeeds
The grasshoppers, wends towards his home,
A man, a home of every day.
He knows the window and the light
That shines from it he knows:
Each thing within the room so well
He knows its face, so long has known,
It seems a household god that claims
His reverence or his care.
He doffs his shoes contentedly,
And draws his seat beside the fire;
Slumber is on his child, his dame
Sews tiny frills that it may wear,
As ever-anon she turns a glance
Upon its open-mouthed repose.
Happy he seems with a quiet peace,—
But toils he not by the loom all day?
Aye, and each hour is as a wedge
To steady his advance to age,
When around him shall have grown
Stalwart sons with shoulders broad,
And daughters with long Eve-like hair,
And noiseless step along the floor.
The blind child-god of love hath lent
His wings unto the hours, and smiles
As they hurry past like bees.
Love! whom Anacreon's nymphs scarce pleased,
Who listened to Arcadian lutes
And thought them wearisome,—
Unto the shuttle lends his ear!