Mundi et Cordis :: :: University of Virginia Library

Love is not love, that coldly calculates
The chances of the fire on which it feeds:
Whenever Passion reasons, it abates,
And grows a miser of its liberal deeds.
No niggard is a lover: she who swears
To be forbearing in her heart's sweet alms,
Dishonoureth the livery which she wears;
And breatheth a dull air, whose touch becalms
The spirit on the deep of its great yearning,
Or that part playeth which to Love's discerning
Is seeming, merely—to be full-forgiven,
Because that falsehood is of falsehood born;
And that the world hath on Love's forehead riven
His crown of Truth, with its vile hand of scorn!