Jephthah and Other Mysteries

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—