Love takes its impress from the formless hues
That signify the thing they yet conceal;
Love leads that heart to life, which it endues
With joys that aggravate the harm they heal;
Love’s treasures are not priceless to all eyes,
All may not learn what their full magic means:
By various grades of hopes, and fears, and sighs,
And ecstacies, and woes, raptures, and dreams,
The soul of man ascends to that it loves,
And is developed into something more;
In a more rich creation now it moves,
And seeks in other souls a priceless ore:
Something it finds, yet loses what it lacks,
So must the conqueror in the town he sacks.