 | The Collected Poems of Philip Bourke Marston |  |
163
LOVE'S SUFFICIENCY.
If love be unsufficient, what avails?
If love abideth not, then what thing stays?
One prayed-to wearies as the one who prays;
The exquisite delight of passion fails;
No joy endures; the brightest beauty pales;
And though to art we give our nights and days,
We know our brows unworthy of their bays,—
Wreckt men whose eyes see visionary sails.
If love abideth not, then what thing stays?
One prayed-to wearies as the one who prays;
The exquisite delight of passion fails;
No joy endures; the brightest beauty pales;
And though to art we give our nights and days,
We know our brows unworthy of their bays,—
Wreckt men whose eyes see visionary sails.
And is love insufficient, O my queen?
Did we not say, when in love's sweet control
We stood, each bound to each, “For what hath been
This hour suffices?” O belovèd, see
It hath sufficed. Love's saving memory
Has interposed 'twixt ruin and my soul.
Did we not say, when in love's sweet control
We stood, each bound to each, “For what hath been
This hour suffices?” O belovèd, see
It hath sufficed. Love's saving memory
Has interposed 'twixt ruin and my soul.
| The Collected Poems of Philip Bourke Marston | |