The Lovers

But we are on the proper road alone!

If gladly is to thaw the frozen soul,

The fire of love must aye be kept alive.

1807─8. ——- CHARADE.

Two words there ‘are, both short, of beauty rare,

Whose sounds our lips so often love to frame,

But which with clearness never can proclaim The things whose own peculiar stamp they bear.

’Tis well in days of age and youth so fair,

One on the other boldly to inflame;

And if those words together link’d we name,
A blissful rapture we discover there.

But now to give them pleasure do I seek,

And in myself my happiness would find;

I hope in silence, but I hope for this:

Gently, as loved one’s names, those words to speak

To see them both within one image shrin’d,

Both in one being to embrace with bliss.

1807. ——-