LYRICAL AND DRAMATIC. 181
Though for the pleasures of God’s house my heart
Has no distaste, yet, should my Love resign
The lips and languors it has made as mine
And of our Godhead sacrifice a part?
Death were a grief, a parting pang to me,
And not this Fear that hunts relentlessly
All thoughts about the void, whose veiléd dart
Poisons before it strikes! I would the sea
Swung meabout, a corpse inane and cold
On her warm breast of gold!
The Fear of Madness! Consciousness knows not
Its own decay. I should be happy then,
Cast like a leper from the paths of men,
And this dull earth’s desires should be forgot
In my own mind’s dear world, where Heaven is blue,
And the green bosom of the land lets through
The purple of the violets, begot
On tears by kisses, where the early dew
Glistens in no sun’s beams but in those eyes
Wherein my life-love lies.
The Fear of Hell is past by virtue of
The sweet shed blood that burns out sin ; the Fear
Of living on beyond that silent year
When I shall follow to the grave of love
All that is left of all that I held dear,
And my whole heart is buried with the bier
That is quite hidden with the flowers above—
Jasmine for passion, snowdrop for a tear—