Love’s Caprices

COME, sweetheart, hear me! I have loved thee well,
God knoweth. Through all these years my holiest thoughts,
Like those pure doves nurtured in antique temples,
Have fluttered ever round thine image fair,
And found in thee their shrine. No tenderest hope
Of mine, which hath not warmed its radiant wings
Within that heaven, thy presence, and drank strength
And sunshine from it.
How hast thou responded?
Sometimes thine eyes like Eden gates unclosed,
Would pour such beams of sacred passion down,
That all my soul was flooded with its joy,
And I, methought, breathed as immortals breathe,
A deathless light and ether. Then, when most
I dreamed me happy, a strange change would come,
Sudden as strange; some wind of cold caprice,
Blowing, I knew not whence, an icy cloud
Upbore, and o'er the splendor of thy brow,
Of late so frankly beautiful, there hung
Ominous shadow's, crossed by gleams of scorn;
Trifles as slight as cider-down have power
To move or sting thee, and a swarm of humors,
Gendered of morbid fancy, buzz and hiss
About some vacant chambers of thy mind,
By idle thoughts left open, making harsh,
Rude discord, where, if healthful will had sway,
Angels, perchance, might lift celestial voices!
Love, love, thou wrong'st thyself, and that sweet nature,
Sweet at the core, for all such small despites,
Wherewith kind heaven endowed thee; yet, beware!
Caprice, though frail its shafts, a poisoned barb
Hath bound on each; their points are sharp to wound,
And the wounds rankle! Giants great as Love
Have perished merely of an insect's venom,
And who through all God's universe can touch
Love's pulseless heart to warmth and life again?