Love's Servants

There came to me who cried, " Arise and wake
And follow us, beholding we are Love's, —
His chosen ones who haunt his secret groves.
Wherein are streams where thou thy thirst may'st slake;
Ah, be well pleased with us thy home to make."
The voice of her who spoke was like a dove's.
When with her tenderest pleading she most moves
Her mate to love in some dim, tangled brake;

A ripe seduction lurked in every curve
Of her lithe body. Then the second spake.
Gayer her tone; the third, with jeers and cries.
Besought and threatened, — but I closed my eyes,
For these were all Love's servants, for whose sake
Shall they who knew the Master stoop to serve?