Dost thou remember, Love, those hours
Shot o'er with random rainy showers,
When the bold sun would woo coy May?
She smiled, then wept - and looked another way.
We, learning from the sun and season,
Together plotted joyous treason
'Gainst maiden majesty, to give
Each other troth, and henceforth wedded live.
But love, ah, love we know is blind!
Not always what they seek they find
When, groping through dim-lighted natures,
Fond lovers look for old, ideal statures.
What then? Is all our purpose lost?
The balance broken, since Fate tossed
Uneven weights? Oh well beware
That thought, my sweet: 't were neither fit nor fair!
Seek not for any grafted fruits
From souls so wedded at the roots;
But whatsoe'er our fibres hold,
Let that grow forth in mutual, ample mold!
No sap can circle without flaw
Into the perfect sphere we saw
Hanging before our happy eyes
Amid the shade of marriage-mysteries;
But all that in the heart doth lurk
Must toward the mystic shaping work:
Sweet fruit and bitter both must fall
When the boughs bend, at each year's autumn-call.
Ah, dear defect! that aye shall lift
Us higher, not through craven shift
Of fault on common frailty; - nay,
But twofold hope to help with generous stay!
I shall be nearer, understood:
More prized art thou than perfect good.
And since thou lov'st me, I shall grow
Thy other self - thy Life, thy Joy, thy Woe!