I LOVE thee not alone for what thou art,
But for a glory which is shed on thee ; Not only for thy body packed with sweet Of all this world; that cup of violet wine ; That mortal rose sweet in the night of life ; That blossom by the early rain brought on ; Nor for that stirring bosom all besieged By drowsing lovers ; nor thy perilous hair ; Nor for that face that might indeed provoke Invasion of high cities; nor thy brow Pale as a moon that on the summer steals ; Nor for thy freshness breathing like strange sleep.
Not for this only do I love thee, but Because Infinity upon thee broods; And thou art full of whispers and of shadows.
Thy voice is like to music heard ere birth, Some spirit lute touched on a spirit sea.
Thy face remembered is from other stars : It has been sung of, though I know not when, It has been died for, though I know not where : It has the strangeness of the luring West And of sad sea-horizons : beside thee I am aware of many times and lands, Of birth far-back, of lives in many orbs.
0 beauty, lone and like a candle clear
In this dim country of the world! 0 light, 0 sudden taper lit in far-off dark,
A silent beam to the uncertain soul !
Thou meanest what the sea has striven to sly So long, and yearned up the cliffs to tell ; Thou art what all the winds have uttered not, The lovely secret of the swooning breeze.
STEPHEN rHILLuv.
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