72 
A PAEAN IN THE SPRINGTIDE 
 
Pleasure and pain are made one, a delirious noble 
emotion ; 
Love dies before he grows manly, dawn never yields 
to the sun. 
 
Love in a night shall live and die, 
Love in a day shall wing and fly ; 
Love in the Spring shall last an hour, 
Easily fades a spring-tide flower. 
 
Where are the blooms of frost, hoary and bright and 
vestal ; 
Virginal lips not kissed, flowers unbidden to bud ? 
Ah !  we have slain their beams, as our low heads 
lazily nestle, 
Where the dark home of Love is, where the impatient 
blood 
Spurts at the furious kiss, darts far forth as an adder, 
Stinging and biting amain, as the night becomes 
golden with fire. 
Dawn brings reason back, and the violet eyes grow 
sadder, 
Eyes that were red in the dark, eyes of enfevered desire. 
Eyes that wrote songs with a glance, whose look sang the 
sweetest of stories,