White Stains

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,