  [Written after reading Shakespeare's sonnet commencing, "Love is not Love which alters when it alterations finds."] Love is a sort of cannibal And lives upon its kind, It dares all dangers, fears no foes And to the world is blind, While faithful heart unswerving beats, Or pines in forced retreat; It deems all tortures fate may send Are perfumed with the sweet Aroma of implicit faith, Born of a kindred soul That to the outer things of life Spurns puny hate's control. Love, undeceived, is perfect bliss When trust reciprocates The purest, sweetest touch that Heaven Within the soul creates; But fierce Vesuvius cannot burn With such destructive flame, As fires Love's victim of deceit Stung by the taunts that claim No truthful fountain as their source, No mild-voiced Justice to allay The cauldron of defenseless fraud Distilled through treachery. Love that dissembles is not love, But a subtle treachery,— A siren with a charming voice That sounds o'er a mirror sea,— A beacon light set to allure From a harbor safe and calm,— A soothing drug whose deadly power Yields to no proffered balm,— A smiling face with winsome glow But poisonous, blasting breath, That breathes upon its victim, draughts Of sorrow, tears, and death. Love that would gain a mastery To wield for pelf or power, Is not a love born clean and pure O'er which no evils lower, But like a miasmatic clime That yields delicious fruit, It hides the venom it distills, And seeks its sole repute In outward show and pageantry, Wherein are deep concealed The poisoned arrows plumed for death, It would not have revealed. Unselfish love is but a spark Of God's own spirit dropped from Heaven, The richest boon, the sweetest joy, That unto mortals God hath given; To lift the soul on joyous wings, Attune the heart to harmonies, And softly touch the tensioned strings That vibrate in such unison With other strings so like its own, That not a discord may be heard In cadence, blend, or tone. As a cricket sang his song to me On a late September eve, The tone had a sadness in it, That over my spirit did weave A spell of gloom, at the requiem He sang in his solitude, For the dying year, th' fading leaf, And flowers by frost subdued. |
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