He Abjures Love

At last I put off love,      For twice ten years     The daysman of my thought,      And hope, and doing;     Being ashamed thereof,      And faint of fears     And desolations, wrought     In his pursuing,     Since first in youthtime those      Disquietings     That heart-enslavement brings      To hale and hoary,     Became my housefellows,      And, fool and blind,     I turned from kith and kind      To give him glory.     I was as children be      Who have no care;     I did not shrink or sigh,      I did not sicken;     But lo, Love beckoned me,      And I was bare,     And poor, and starved, and dry,      And fever-stricken.     Too many times ablaze      With fatuous fires,     Enkindled by his wiles      To new embraces,     Did I, by wilful ways      And baseless ires,     Return the anxious smiles      Of friendly faces.     No more will now rate I      The common rare,     The midnight drizzle dew,      The gray hour golden,     The wind a yearning cry,      The faulty fair,     Things dreamt, of comelier hue      Than things beholden! . . .      - I speak as one who plumbs      Life's dim profound,     One who at length can sound      Clear views and certain.     But - after love what comes?      A scene that lours,     A few sad vacant hours,      And then, the Curtain.     1883.