Sonnet LIV: Love's Fatality
Sweet Love,—but oh! most dread Desire of Love
Life—thwarted. Linked in gyves I saw them stand,
Love shackled with Vain—longing, hand to hand:
And one was eyed as the blue vault above:
But hope tempestuous like a fire—cloud hove
I’ the other’s gaze, even as in his whose wand
Vainly all night with spell—wrought power has spann’d
The unyielding caves of some deep treasure—trove.
Also his lips, two writhen flakes of flame,
Made moan: “Alas O Love, thus leashed with me!
Wing—footed thou, wing—shouldered, once born free:
And I, thy cowering self, in chains grown tame,—
Bound to thy body and soul, named with thy name,—
Life’s iron heart, even Love’s Fatality.”
