Were it ever so airy a tread,
My heart would hear her and beat,
Were it earth in an earthy bed;
My dust would hear her and beat,
Had I lain for a century dead;
Would start and tremble under her feet,
And blossom in purple and red.

This is a very fine instance of the purely idea emotion--extravagant, if
you like, in the force of the imagery used, but absolutely sincere and
true; for the imagination of love is necessarily extravagant. It would be
quite useless to ask whether the sound of a girl's footsteps could really
waken a dead man; we know that love can fancy such things quite naturally,
not in one country only but everywhere. An Arabian poem written long
before the time of Mohammed contains exactly the same thought in simpler
words; and I think that there are some old Japanese songs containing
something similar. All that the statement really means is that the voice,
the look, the touch, even the footstep of the woman beloved have come to
possess for the lover a significance as great as life and death. For the
moment he knows no other divinity; she is his god, in the sense that her
power over him has become infinite and irresistible.

The second example may be furnished from another part of the same
composition--the little song of exaltation after the promise to marry has
been given.

O let the solid ground
Not fail beneath my feet
Before my life has found
What some have found so sweet;