Three Roundels
I
Love, though I die, and dying lave
My soul in Lethe endlessly,
Losing all else, I still would save
—Love, though I die—
Thy living presence, touch and sigh,
All that the golden moments gave
To vanished hours of ecstasy.
Then make thou great and wide my grave,
So wide we two therein may lie;
For sense of thee my soul will crave,
Love, though I die.
II
My lips refuse to take farewell of bliss,
Sweet Love! so sweet and false, I can but choose
To leave thee, only parting word and kiss
My lips refuse.
Fancy wears livery of a thousand hues,
So love in idleness may come to this!
And I must bring the thought to common use
That ever—save in memory—I shall miss
Thy short-lived tenderness-ever lose
All that has taught how dear a thing it is
My lips refuse.
III
Other lips than yours intreat
Those I vowed in vanished hours,
Never Fate should force to greet
Other lips than yours.
Memory dulls, perchance, or sours
What was once so keenly sweet,
Being ours and only ours.
All the life and heart and heat,
All the soul that love outpours,
Dies upon the lips that meet
Other lips than yours.
D. F. Blomfield.