Portrait of Young Love

If you were with me—as you’re not, of course,
I’d taste the elegant tortures of Despair
With a slow, languid, long-refining tongue;
Puzzle for days on one particular stare,
Or if you knew a word’s peculiar force,
Or what you looked like when you were quite young.

You’d lift me heaven-high—till a word grated.
Dash me hell-deep—oh that luxurious Pit,
Fatly and well encushioned with self-pity,
Where Love’s an epicure not quickly sated!
What mournful musics wander over it,
Faint-blown from some long-lost celestial city!

Such bitter joyousness I’d have, and action,
Were you here—be no more the fool who broods
On true Adventure till he wakes her scorning—
But we’re too petty for such noble warning!
And I find just as perfect satisfaction
In analyzing these, and other moods!