What shall I tell you, dear, who have told all,
What do, whose wish, whose will is manacled,
What dare, whose duty at your festival
Is but to light the candles round Love's bed?
How can I sing to you uncomforted
By any crumb of kindness Joy lets fall?
Unsexed am I by service, heart and head.
Nay, let me sleep and turn me to the wall.
--Alas there is a day when all joy dies,
Through stress of time and tears' thin nourishment
And that dumb peace of Age which veils the end.
Here am I come, and here I close my eyes,
With what I may of dreams (they naught portend),
Framing your face, the last before Love went.
Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
