The Love Sonnets of Proteus, Gods and False Gods, LXXX: To One Unforgotten

You are not false perhaps, as lovers say
Meaning the act, — Alas, that guilt was mine.
Nor, maybe, have you bowed at other shrine
Than the true god's where first you learned to pray.
I know the idols round you. They are clay,
Mere Dagons to the courage half divine
Which bears you scathless still thro' sap and mine
And breach and storm upon your virgin way.
Alas, I know your virtue. But your heart,
How have you treated it ? I sometimes see,
When nights are long, a vision chaste and true
Of pale pathetic eyes which gaze on me
In love and grief eternal. Then I start,
Crying aloud, and reach my arms to you.