Page:Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918.djvu/762

 PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

O Love, who bewailest The frailty of all things here,

Why choose you the frailest For your cradle, your home, and your bier?

Its passions will rock thee, As the storms rock the ravens on high.

Bright reason will mock thee, Like the sun from a wintry sky.

From thy nest every rafter Will rot, and thine eagle home

Leave thee naked to laughter, When leaves fall and cold winds come.

622 To

��ONE word is too often profaned For me to profane it; One feeling too falsely disdain'd

For thee to disdain it; One hope is too like despair For prudence to smother; And pity from thee more dear Than that from another.

I can give not what men call love:

But wilt thou accept not The worship the heart lifts above

And the heavens reject not, The desire of the moth for the star,

Of the night for the morrow, The devotion to something afar

From the sphere of our sorrow?

�� �