THE LARGER LOVE.

WHEN other poets sing of love, and pour
     The honeyed stream of love’s idolatry
     About the feet of some supremest she,
Until, sweet-saturated to the core,
Her wings are drowned and can no longer soar,

     I think of my strong lover—like the sea,
     More full of salt than sweetness—challenging me
For his love’s sake to heights unscaled before.

Not his to exhale the airs that dull the brain
     With poison of dense perfume, but to sting

          Thought, feeling, fancy, into luminous deed;
That through the splendid tumult and the strain
     The form of Love may tower, a god-like thing,
          Crowned, shod and girdled with his richest meed.
[Page 165]