O LOVE, Love, Love! O withering might!
O sun, that from thy noonday height
Shudderest when I strain my sight,
Throbbing thro all thy heat and light,
Lo, falling from my constant mind,
Lo, parchd and witherd, deaf and blind,
I whirl like leaves in roaring wind.
Last night I wasted hateful hours
Below the citys eastern towers:
I thirsted for the brooks, the showers:
I rolld among the tender flowers:
I crushd them on my breast, my mouth;
I lookd athwart the burning drouth
Of that long desert to the south.
Last night, when some one spoke his name,
From my swift blood that went and came
A thousand little shafts of flame
Were shiverd in my narrow frame.
O Love, O fire! once he drew
With one long kiss my whole soul thro
My lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.
Before he mounts the hill,
I knowHe cometh quickly: from below
Sweet gales, as from deep gardens, blow
Before him, striking on my brow.
In my dry brain my spirit soon,
Down-deepening from swoon to swoon,
Faints like a dazzled morning moon.
The wind sounds like a silver wire,
And from beyond the noon a fire
Is pourd upon the hills, and nigher
The skies stoop down in their desire;
And, isled in sudden seas of light,
My heart, pierced thro with fierce delight,
Bursts into blossom in his sight.
My whole soul waiting silently,
All naked in a sultry sky,
Droops blinded with his shining eye:
I will possess him or will die.
I will grow round him in his place,
Grow, live, die looking on his face,
Die, dying claspd in his embrace.

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