There is a love so perfect it requires No touch of clinging lips or clasping hands. It blossoms not from passion, so demands No fleshly contact. Chaste this flame which fires The soul to high endeavor. It inspires No fevered longings. Of its fragile strands Man weaves himself a heaven. It withstands Adversity, for this white love aspires. But it is delicate as that faint bloom On purple fruits or on a night moth's wings; And frail as frostwork so it shares the doom Of all life's exquisitely lovely things. It can survive the tomb, such love as this, But it will vanish at a single kiss. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...ON SOME LINES OF LOPE DE VEGA by SAMUEL JOHNSON (1709-1784) THE RAGGED WOOD by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS THE ROYAL CROWN by ISRAEL ABRAHAMS FAREWELL by GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE ON THE PICTURE OF LUCRETIA STABBING HERSELF by PHILIP AYRES SUNRISE AND SUNSET: 1. SUNRISE by GEORGE BARLOW (1847-1913) |