A Desire
Let me not lay the lightest feather's weight
Of duty upon Love. Let not, my own,
The breath of one reluctant kiss be blown
Between our hearts. I would not be the gate
That bars, like some inexorable fate,
The portals of thy life; that says, "Alone
Through me shall any joy to thee be known;"
Rather the window, fragrant early and late
With thy sweet, clinging thoughts, that grow and twine
Around me, like some bright and blooming vine:
Through which the sun shall shed his wealth on thee
In golden showers; through which thou may'st look out
Exulting in all beauty, without doubt,
Or fear, or shadow of regret from me.
Let me not lay the lightest feather's weight
Of duty upon Love. Let not, my own,
The breath of one reluctant kiss be blown
Between our hearts. I would not be the gate
That bars, like some inexorable fate,
The portals of thy life; that says, "Alone
Through me shall any joy to thee be known;"
Rather the window, fragrant early and late
With thy sweet, clinging thoughts, that grow and twine
Around me, like some bright and blooming vine:
Through which the sun shall shed his wealth on thee
In golden showers; through which thou may'st look out
Exulting in all beauty, without doubt,
Or fear, or shadow of regret from me.