Poetry Archives

Nay, do not ask me, Sweet, if I have loved before,
  Or if, mayhap, in other years to be,
A younger, fairer face than thine I know,
  I’ll love her more than thee.

What should it matter if I’ve loved before,
  So that I love thee now, and love thee best?
What matters it that I should love again
  If, first, the daisy-buds blow o’er thy breast?

Love has the waywardness of strange caprice,
  One can not chain it to a recreant heart,
Nor, when around the soul its tendrils twine,
  Can will the clinging, silken bonds to part.

It is enough, I hold thee prisoned in my arms,
  And drink the dewy fragrance of thy breath;
And earth, and heaven, and hades, are forgot,
  And love holds carnival, and laughs at death.

Then do not ask me, Sweet, if I have loved before,
  Or if some day my heart might turn from thee;
In this brief hour, thou hast my soul of love,
  And thou are Is, and Was, and May be—all to me.