You'd argued down so much of revelry; You'd trimmed your virgin lamp so holy wise, For once I hoped the flinty cavalry Of storm would strike a madness in your eyes. But though the white limbs of the sycamore, So Pagan, where no whiter than your own, You saw no pleasant satyrs by the door Nor passion in the thunder's monotone. You wondered, if the battened crows were driven, If fanged lightning walked the fields in flame, What right had we with mirth, what hope of heaven, Thus safely housed? -- you wondered in God's name. And so with right and wrong the night we strove -- We had less need of argument than love. |