In vain were ears to hear,
And eyes in vain,
Lacking your ordered music, sphere to sphere,
Blind, should your beauty blossom not again.

The pulse that shakes the world with rhythmic beat
Is but the passing of your little feet;
And all the singing vast of all the seas,
Down from the pole
To the Hesperides,
Is but the praying echo of your soul.

Therefore, beloved, know that this is true--
The world exists and vanishes in you!
Tis not a lover's fancy; ask the sky
If all its stars depend not, even as I,
Upon your eyelids, when they open or close;
And let the garden answer with the rose.




BALLADE OF THE UNCHANGING BÉLOVED

(TO I----a)

When rumour fain would fright my ear
With the destruction and decay
Of things familiar and dear,
And vaunt of a swift-running day