Sweet Lamp! my moth-like Muse has burned its wings
Or, like a dying swan who soars and sings,
Young Love should teach Time, in his own gray style, 55
All that thou art.  Art thou not void of guile,
A lovely soul formed to be blessed and bless? 
A well of sealed and secret happiness,
Whose waters like blithe light and music are,
Vanquishing dissonance and gloom?  A Star 60
Which moves not in the moving heavens, alone? 
A Smile amid dark frowns? a gentle tone
Amid rude voices? a beloved light? 
A Solitude, a Refuge, a Delight? 
A Lute, which those whom Love has taught to play 65
Make music on, to soothe the roughest day
And lull fond Grief asleep? a buried treasure? 
A cradle of young thoughts of wingless pleasure? 
A violet-shrouded grave of Woe?—­I measure
The world of fancies, seeking one like thee, 70
And find—­alas! mine own infirmity.

She met me, Stranger, upon life’s rough way,
And lured me towards sweet Death; as Night by Day,
Winter by Spring, or Sorrow by swift Hope,
Led into light, life, peace.  An antelope, 75
In the suspended impulse of its lightness,
Were less aethereally light:  the brightness
Of her divinest presence trembles through
Her limbs, as underneath a cloud of dew
Embodied in the windless heaven of June 80
Amid the splendour-winged stars, the Moon
Burns, inextinguishably beautiful: 
And from her lips, as from a hyacinth full
Of honey-dew, a liquid murmur drops,
Killing the sense with passion; sweet as stops 85
Of planetary music heard in trance. 
In her mild lights the starry spirits dance,
The sunbeams of those wells which ever leap
Under the lightnings of the soul—­too deep
For the brief fathom-line of thought or sense. 90
The glory of her being, issuing thence,
Stains the dead, blank, cold air with a warm shade
Of unentangled intermixture, made
By Love, of light and motion:  one intense
Diffusion, one serene Omnipresence, 95
Whose flowing outlines mingle in their flowing,
Around her cheeks and utmost fingers glowing
With the unintermitted blood, which there
Quivers, (as in a fleece of snow-like air
The crimson pulse of living morning quiver,) 100
Continuously prolonged, and ending never,
Till they are lost, and in that Beauty furled
Which penetrates and clasps and fills the world;
Scarce visible from extreme loveliness. 
Warm fragrance seems to fall from her light dress 105
And her loose hair; and where some heavy tress
The air of her own speed has disentwined,
The sweetness seems to satiate the faint wind;