To a Lady, XLV

And I could see, when there above, This was thine essence, Holy Love! For love, below, unfailing comer To light and shade our life’s young summer; The love that stirs each earthly bosom, When life’s first blushing roses blossom; That joyful, gleeful, blissful sighing, Dying for love, yet never dying: Oh, that sweet speech of eye to eye, Is love, but not like love on high. ’Tis all the same in essence fair, But mingled here—’tis perfect there: Here, earthly, troubled, never sure, Above, ’tis tearless, blest, and pure: Here, never can we call our own, Flesh of our flesh, and bone of bone; Above, two hearts may join in one, And never is the tie undone, Unending still, and still begun.