 | Plays and poems |  |
361
[The fever in my blood has died]
The fever in my blood has died;
The eager foot, the glancing eye,
By beauty lured so easily,
No more are moved, or turned aside:
My smiles are gone, my tears are dried.
The eager foot, the glancing eye,
By beauty lured so easily,
No more are moved, or turned aside:
My smiles are gone, my tears are dried.
And if I say I love thee now,
'T is not because my passions burn—
Fair as thou art—to ask return
Of love for love, and vow for vow;
Too dear exchanged for such as thou.
'T is not because my passions burn—
Fair as thou art—to ask return
Of love for love, and vow for vow;
Too dear exchanged for such as thou.
I love thee only as he can
Who knows his heart. I yield, in truth,
Not the blind, headlong heat of youth,
That pants ere it has run a span,
But the determined love of man.
Who knows his heart. I yield, in truth,
Not the blind, headlong heat of youth,
That pants ere it has run a span,
But the determined love of man.
And if from me you ask more fire
Than lights my slowly-fading days,—
The sudden frenzy and the blaze,
The selfish clutch of young desire,—
You point where I cannot aspire.
Than lights my slowly-fading days,—
The sudden frenzy and the blaze,
The selfish clutch of young desire,—
You point where I cannot aspire.
Yet do not bend thy head to weep,
Because my love so coldly shows;
For where the fuel fiercely glows
The flame is brief: in ashes deep
The everlasting embers sleep.
Because my love so coldly shows;
For where the fuel fiercely glows
The flame is brief: in ashes deep
The everlasting embers sleep.
| Plays and poems | |