Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 2.djvu/461

CANTO IV.] CXX.

Alas! our young affections run to waste,

Or water but the desert! whence arise

But weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of haste,

Rank at the core, though tempting to the eyes

Flowers whose wild odours breathe but agonies,

And trees whose gums are poison; such the plants

Which spring beneath her steps as Passion flies

O'er the World's wilderness, and vainly pants

For some celestial fruit forbidden to our wants.

CXXI.

Oh, Love! no habitant of earth thou art—

An unseen Seraph, we believe in thee,—

A faith whose martyrs are the broken heart,—

But never yet hath seen, nor e'er shall see

The naked eye, thy form, as it should be;

The mind hath made thee, as it peopled Heaven,

Even with its own desiring phantasy,

And to a thought such shape and image given,

As haunts the unquenched soul—parched—wearied—wrung—and riven.