TO BE FORGIVEN.I callthee “love”—“my sweet, my dearest love,”Nor feel it bold, nor fear it a deceit:Yet I forget not that, in realms above,The thrones of Seraphs are beneath thy feet.If Queen of angels thou, of hearts no less:And so of mine—a poet’s, which must needsAdore to all melodious excessWhat cannot sate the rapture that it feeds.And then thou art my Mother: God’s, yet mine!Of mothers, as of virgins, first and best;And I as tenderly, intimately thineAs He, my Brother, carried at the breast.My Mother! ‘Tis enough. If mine the rightTo call thee this, much more to muse and sighAll other honeyed names. A slave, Imight—A son, Imust. And both of these am I.
TO BE FORGIVEN.I callthee “love”—“my sweet, my dearest love,”Nor feel it bold, nor fear it a deceit:Yet I forget not that, in realms above,The thrones of Seraphs are beneath thy feet.If Queen of angels thou, of hearts no less:And so of mine—a poet’s, which must needsAdore to all melodious excessWhat cannot sate the rapture that it feeds.And then thou art my Mother: God’s, yet mine!Of mothers, as of virgins, first and best;And I as tenderly, intimately thineAs He, my Brother, carried at the breast.My Mother! ‘Tis enough. If mine the rightTo call thee this, much more to muse and sighAll other honeyed names. A slave, Imight—A son, Imust. And both of these am I.
I callthee “love”—“my sweet, my dearest love,”Nor feel it bold, nor fear it a deceit:Yet I forget not that, in realms above,The thrones of Seraphs are beneath thy feet.If Queen of angels thou, of hearts no less:And so of mine—a poet’s, which must needsAdore to all melodious excessWhat cannot sate the rapture that it feeds.And then thou art my Mother: God’s, yet mine!Of mothers, as of virgins, first and best;And I as tenderly, intimately thineAs He, my Brother, carried at the breast.My Mother! ‘Tis enough. If mine the rightTo call thee this, much more to muse and sighAll other honeyed names. A slave, Imight—A son, Imust. And both of these am I.
I callthee “love”—“my sweet, my dearest love,”Nor feel it bold, nor fear it a deceit:
Yet I forget not that, in realms above,The thrones of Seraphs are beneath thy feet.
If Queen of angels thou, of hearts no less:And so of mine—a poet’s, which must needs
Adore to all melodious excessWhat cannot sate the rapture that it feeds.
And then thou art my Mother: God’s, yet mine!Of mothers, as of virgins, first and best;
And I as tenderly, intimately thineAs He, my Brother, carried at the breast.
My Mother! ‘Tis enough. If mine the rightTo call thee this, much more to muse and sigh
All other honeyed names. A slave, Imight—A son, Imust. And both of these am I.