O COULD my love devise A shield for you from envious lips and eyes That desecrate the sweetness of your days With tumults of their praise! O could my love design A secret, sealed, invulnerable shrine To hide you, happy and inviolate, From covetous Time and Fate. Love, I am drenched with fear Lest the uncounted avarice of the year Add to the triumph of all garnered grace The rapture of your face! I tremble with despair Lest the far-journeying winds and sunbeams bear Bright rumours of your luring brows and breath Unto the groves of Death. What sanctuary can I pledge Whose very love of you is sacrilege? O I would save you from the ravening fire Of my own heart's desire! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...A CHILD'S PRAYER [OR, HYMN] by MATILDA BARBARA BETHAM-EDWARDS APRIL, 1885 by ROBERT SEYMOUR BRIDGES THE PASSIONS: AN ODE FOR MUSIC by WILLIAM COLLINS (1721-1759) JOY OF THE MORNING by EDWIN MARKHAM THE BURDEN OF NINEVEH by DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTI |