Anteros

MY love, thou madest me to love thee first.
Then thought of thee and thine approach was dear
And cordial as the wind that winnows clear
The orient verge in sad sea-vapors mersed
Ere Guido’s vision on the dark world burst. Thy presence was the Morning far and near
With rainbow glamour lighting every tear
The flower uplifts to slake the sunbeam’s thirst. My love, my love, thou makest me to fear!
And now my soul, like some low intervale
Where the cold damps of night a mist exhale,
Before thee lies, blind all its paths and drear. And wilt thou more ? — despise this drooping cheer,
When thou it is hast caused my heart to fail!

Thou makest me to fear, — to move in dread,
As one who skirts a wood where every branch
Conceals an archer swift and fain to launch
A noiseless hest to join the unnumbered dead. Ah, see! Thou hast thy mordant heart so fed
With bitter doubt of mine that, if I blanch
At fancy l could prove to thee unstanch,
Thou deemest me by guilt disquieted !
Thou mad’st me love, and mightst have bid me show
With open vein how quick, how warm, how red,
The currents leap at Life’s leal fountain-head. Thou mak’st me fear, and therein wrongest so
Thyself and Love, thou needs must have me foe
Till thou thy dark ally, Distrust, have sped.

If still thou love, thou knowest, — thou alone :
But if thy purpose bindeth thee to dwell
Intrenched within a winter citadel,
Whence frost and brume and flawing storm are blown,
Lo ! mine ally I bring from near Love’s throne,—
His foster-brother whose great heart doth swell
At wrongs done Love, whose instant arm doth fell
All prideful doubt in brooding darkness grown !
Thus sieged, it may be that thou wilt dispel
The unnative clouds, and, morning-bright, emerge:
But if thou wilt not, I no longer urge
Thy laggard dawn ; but, bidding thee farewell,
I follow Love heard as a wave-swung bell
When light is gone and wildly runs the surge.