Page:The poems of Richard Watson Gilder, Gilder, 1908.djvu/43

Rh Let others for my love give love to me;

From other souls, O, gladly will I take,

This burning, heart-dry thirst of love to slake,

What seas of human pity there may be!

Nay, nay, I care no more how love may grow,

So that I hear thee answer to my call;

Love me because my piteous tears do flow,

Or that my love for thee did first befall.

Love me or late or early, fast or slow—

But love me, Love, for love is all in all!

VII—BODY AND SOUL

I

O, my Love, love first my lonely soul!

Then shall this too unworthy body of mine

Be loved by right and accident divine.

Forget the flesh, that the pure spirit's goal

May be the spirit; let that stand the whole

Of what thou lov'st in me. So will the shine

Of soul that strikes on soul make fair and fine

This earthy tenement; thou shalt extol

The inner, that the outer lovelier seem.

Thy lover, who thy love implores, doth fear

No deadlier foe than the impassioned dream

Should drive thee to him, and should hold thee near—

Near to the body, not the soul of him:

Love first my soul and then both will be dear.

II

But, Love, for me thy body was the first.

One day I wandered idly through the town,

Then entered a cathedral's silence brown

Which sudden thrilled with a strange heavenly burst