Thy heart will not believe in love:

Therefore is love become to me

A dream, an empty mockery,

And death and life are less than love.

O, bright and beautiful as flame

Thy hair, and pale thy lips, and eyes

Like seas wherein the waning skies

Of autumn lie in paler flame.

Forevermore thy heart abides,

A dreaming crystal, pure and cold,

Amid whose visions manifold

No shape nor any shade abides.

Thy days are void and vain as death:

The moons and morrows weave for thee

A sleep of light eternally,

Where life is as a dream of death.

Chill as white jewels, or the moon,

And virginal as ice or fire,

Thou knowest life and life’s desire

As a bright mirror knows the moon.

Lo, if thy heart believed in love,

It were not more nor less to me:

I know THY love a mockery,

And all my dreams less vain than love.