Thou, bethink thee, art
       A guest for queens to social pageantries,
       With gages from a hundred brighter eyes
     Than tears even can make mine, to play thy part
       Of chief musician.  What hast thou to do
     With looking from the lattice-lights at me,
       A poor, tired, wandering singer, singing through
     The dark, and leaning up a cypress tree? 
       The chrism is on thine head; on mine the dew: 
     And Death must dig the level where these agree.

     Thou hast thy calling to some palace-floor,
       Most gracious singer of high poems, where
       The dancers will break footing, from the care
     Of watching up thy pregnant lips for more. 
     And dost thou lift this house’s latch, too poor
       For hand of thine? and canst thou think, and bear
       To let thy music drop here unaware
     In folds of golden fulness at my door? 
       Look up, and see the casement broken in,
     The bats and owlets builders in the roof! 
       My cricket chirps against thy mandolin. 
     Hush, call no echo up in further proof
       Of desolation! there’s a voice within
     That weeps—­as thou must sing—­alone, aloof.

     What can I give thee back, O liberal
       And princely giver, who hast brought the gold
       And purple of thine heart, unstained, untold,
     And laid them on the outside of the wall
     For such as I to take or leave withal,
       In unexpected largesse?  Am I cold,
       Ungrateful, that for these most manifold
     High gifts, I render nothing back at all? 
       Not so; not cold, but very poor instead. 
     Ask God, who knows.  For frequent tears have run
       The colors from my life, and left so dead
     And pale a stuff, it were not fitly done
       To give the same as pillow to thy head. 
     Go farther! let it serve to trample on.

     If thou must love me, let it be for naught
        Except for love’s sake only.  Do not say
        “I love her for her smile, her look, her way
     Of speaking gently, for a trick of thought
     That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
        A sense of pleasant ease on such a day:” 
        For these things in themselves, beloved, may
     Be changed, or change for thee; and love so wrought
        May be unwrought so.  Neither love me for
     Thine own dear pity’s wiping my cheeks dry: 
        A creature might forget to weep, who bore
     Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby. 
        But love me for love’s sake, that evermore
     Thou mayst love on through love’s eternity.

     First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
        The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;
        And ever since it grew more clean and white,
     Slow to world-greetings, quick with its “Oh list!”