A vast desire awakes and grows
Unto forgetfulness of thee.
[Footnote: "A. E.," _The Fountain of Shadowy Beauty_.]

Rejection is apt to prove an obstacle of double worth to the poet, since
it not only removes him to a distance where his lady's human frailties
are less visible, so that the divine light shining through her seems
less impeded, but it also fires him with a very human ambition to prove
his transcendent worth and thus "get even" with his unappreciative
beloved. [Footnote: See Joaquin Miller, _Ina_; G. L. Raymond,
_"Loving,"_ from _A Life in Song_; Alexander Smith, _A Life Drama_.

Richard Realf in _Advice Gratis_ satirically depicts the lady's
altruism in rejecting her lover:

It would strike fresh heat in your poet's verse
If you dropped some aloes into his wine,
They write supremely under a curse.]

There is danger, of course, that the disillusionment produced by the
revelation of low ideals which the lady makes in her refusal will
counterbalance these good effects. Still, though the poet is so
egotistical toward all the world beside, in his attitude toward his lady
the humility which Emerson expresses in _The Sphinx_ is not without
parallel in verse. Many singers follow him in his belief that the only
worthy love is that for a being so superior that a return of love is
impossible. [Footnote: See _The Sphinx_--

Have I a lover who is noble and free?
I would he were nobler than to love me.