The mirror of men's eyes delights me less, O mirror, than the friend I find in thee; Thou lovest, as I love, my loveliness, Thou givest my beauty back to me. I to myself suffice; why should I tire The heart with roaming that would rest at home? Myself the limit to my own desire, I have no desire to roam. I hear the maidens crying in the hills: "Come up among the bleak and perilous ways, Come up and follow after Love, who fills The hollows of our nights and days; "Love the deliverer, who is desolate, And saves from desolation; the divine Out of great suffering; Love, compassionate, Who is thy bread and wine, "O soul, that faints in following after him." I hear; but what is Love that I should tread Hard ways among the perilous passes dim, Who need no succouring wine and bread? Enough it is to dream, enough to abide Here where the loud world's echoes fall remote, Untroubled, unawakened, satisfied; As water-lilies float Lonely upon a shadow-sheltered pool, Dreaming of their own whiteness; even so, I dwell within a nest of shadows cool, And watch the vague hours come and go. They come and go, but I my own delight Remain, and I desire no change in aught: Might I escape indifferent Time's despite, That ruins all he wrought! This dainty body formed so curiously, So delicately and wonderfully made, My own, that none hath ever shared with me, My own, and for myself arrayed; All this that I have loved and not another, My one desire's delight, this, shall Time bring Where Beauty hath the abhorred worm for brother, The dust for covering? At least I bear it virgin to the grave, Pure, and apart, and rare, and casketed; What, living, was my own and no man's slave, Shall be my own when I am dead. But thou, my friend, my mirror, dost possess The shadow of myself that smiles in thee, And thou dost give, with thy own loveliness, My beauty back to me. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE VIKING GRAVE AT LADBY by KAREN SWENSON THE OLD ENEMY by SARA TEASDALE LEINSTER by LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY THE EARL O' QUARTERDECK by GEORGE MACDONALD SHILOH; A REQUIEM by HERMAN MELVILLE TO A LADY TO ANSWER DIRECTLY WITH YEA OR NAY by THOMAS WYATT |