marriage:

She, being all my world, had left no room
For other occupation than my love.
... I had grown enervate
In the warm atmosphere which I had breathed.

Taken as a whole, the evidence is decidedly in favor of the remote love,
prevented in some way from reaching its culmination. To requote Alfred
Noyes, the poet knows that ideal love must be

Far off, beyond me, otherwise no star.
[Footnote: Marlowe.]

In _Sister Songs_ Francis Thompson asserts that such remoteness is
essential to his genius:

I deem well why life unshared
Was ordained me of yore.
In pairing time, we know, the bird
Kindles to its deepmost splendour,
And the tender
Voice is tenderest in its throat.
Were its love, forever by it,
Never nigh it,
It might keep a vernal note,
The crocean and amethystine
In their pristine
Lustre linger on its coat.
[Footnote: Possibly this is characteristic only of the male singer.