My body and my brain thou hast in thrall;

Though I were dead, I’d rise at thy command,

Would feel the power of thy quickening hand,

And answer to thy softly tuneful call.

Thy foes expire as dies the candle’s flame,

Blackened and burned, consumed for evermore.

Where hast thou learned the Great Magician’s lore

That thine ill-wishers fall before thy name?

When thou art far, no rest my body knows;

With thy departure, Happiness hath ceased.

Thou art to me as Dawn-winds of the East,

The healing breeze that through the casement blows.

Who once hath loved thy pale and fervent face,

To him the rose is dead and cold the flame,

Deaf to all music save thy voice and name,

Blind to all beauty save thy subtle grace.

My heart rebels, and cries, ‘A beggar be,

And haunt her door with supplicating cry.

Perchance she may give ear, and, drawing nigh,

Give thee sweet alms out of her charity.’

Joy will I call the Grief thou bringest me;

Thy Tyranny I’ll deck with Mercy’s name;

If thou wert kind, I could not sing thy fame,

For words would learn their hopeless poverty.

‘These twenty days I have not seen thy face!

Now, wherefore this?’ the well-belovèd cried.

Before she spake, methought my heart had died;

Now doth she give an hundred years of grace.

Lo! thou didst say, ‘Of thy heart speak to me,

For I would hear thy hidden thought avowed.’

What need of words, when Silence cried aloud:

‘My only secret is my love for thee!’

Thy promise thou dost give me laughingly,

And each day sees thy promise is a lie;

Thy wit an hundred reasons doth supply,

Yet finds not one why thou shouldst come to me.

Behold! Thy beauty to the world is known!

Unveiled thou art, that every man may see—

Love’s temple walls are fallen, yet to me

My Idol reigneth proudly and alone.