If I To You But Sorry Bring
For even then at times would stir
The veins that now with passion glow,
And I, within my sepulchre,
Anon should warm and conscious grow.
The pulse would throb, the bosom wake,
And crave the joy they once had known,
And 'twere as easy, for your sake,
To find me there, as here, alone. The world is wide, but tell me where,
Where shall I wander and not see,
See, hear, and feel, on earth, in air,
Something that doth remind of thee?
If I ascend to heaven, thou
Wilt be my first, sole seraph there;
And did I don the demon's brow,
Wouldst all my dear damnation share! Not good nor ill, not life nor death,
Not dark, not light, not joy, not smart,
Not one of these betokeneth
What unto me thou-loved one-art!
Thou art my first, my last, my all,
What keeps me here, what calls me hence-
At once my freedom and my thrall,
My centre, my circumference!