Inscribed

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To the Elect of Love,--or side-by-side
In raptest ecstasy, or sundered wide
By seas that bear no message to or fro
Between the loved and lost of long ago.


So were I but a minstrel, deft
  At weaving, with the trembling strings
Of my glad harp, the warp and weft
  Of rondels such as rapture sings,--
  I'd loop my lyre across my breast,
  Nor stay me till my knee found rest
  In midnight banks of bud and flower
  Beneath my lady's lattice-bower.

And there, drenched with the teary dews,
  I'd woo her with such wondrous art
As well might stanch the songs that ooze
  Out of the mockbird's breaking heart;
  So light, so tender, and so sweet
  Should be the words I would repeat,
  Her casement, on my gradual sight,
  Would blossom as a lily might.

© James Whitcomb Riley