 | Laurella and other poems |  |
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LOVE'S LITURGY.
The little tender rites that lovers use,Daily to calendar their love confest,
Are Love's own liturgy, which he endues
With grace to compass his eternal rest.
This rose, she gave me once, warm from her breast,
Kissing in smiling pity the sweet bruise
Of our close first embrace, with its dim hues,
Bids tender thoughts leap singing from their nest.
A touch can troth-plight for eternity;
A kiss build there a home; in pure delight
God spreads the sacramental bread and wine,
Wherein Love grows incarnate. Curst is he
Whose swinish thoughts, breeding pollution's blight,
Trample to filth those elements divine.
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