Flower+of+Love

Sweet, I blame you not, for mine the fault was, had I not been made of common clay I had climbed the higher heights unclimbed yet, seen the fuller air, the larger day.
 * __Flower of Love __**

From the wildness of my wasted passion I had struck a better, clearer song, Lit some lighter light of freer freedom, battled with some Hydra-headed wrong. Had my lips been smitten into music by the kisses that but made them bleed, You had walked with Bice and the angels on that verdant and enamelled meed.

I had trod the road which Dante treading saw the suns of seven circles shine, Ay! perchance had seen the heavens opening, as they opened to the Florentine.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">And the mighty nations would have crowned me, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">who am crownless now and without <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">name, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">And some orient dawn had found me kneeling on the threshold of the House of <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Fame.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">I had sat within that marble circle where the oldest bard is as the young, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">And the pipe is ever dropping honey, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">and the lyre's strings are ever strung.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Keats had lifted up his hymeneal curls from out the poppy-seeded wine, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">With ambrosial mouth had kissed my forehead, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">clasped the hand of noble love in <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">mine.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">And at springtide, when the apple-blossoms brush the burnished bosom of the <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">dove, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Two young lovers lying in an orchard would have read the story of our love;

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Would have read the legend of my passion, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">known the bitter secret of my heart, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Kissed as we have kissed, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">but never parted as we two are fated now to part.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">For the crimson flower of our life is eaten by the cankerworm of truth, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">And no hand can gather up the fallen withered petals of the rose of youth.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Yet I am not sorry that I loved you <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">-ah! what else had I a boy to do? - <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">For the hungry teeth of time devour, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">and the silent-footed years pursue.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Rudderless, we drift athwart a tempest, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">and when once the storm of youth is <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">past, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Without lyre, without lute or chorus, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Death the silent pilot comes at last.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">And within the grave there is no pleasure, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">for the blindworm battens on the <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">root, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">And Desire shudders into ashes, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">and the tree of Passion bears no fruit.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Ah! what else had I to do but love you? <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">God's own mother was less dear to me, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">And less dear the Cytheraean rising like an argent lily from the sea.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">I have made my choice, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">have lived my poems, and, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">though youth is gone in <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">wasted days, <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">I have found the lover's crown of myrtle better than the poet's crown of bays.