Unattainable.

I     What though the soul be tired     For that to which 'twas fired,     The far, dear, still desired,      Beyond the heaven's scope;     Beyond us and above us,     The thing we would have love us,     That will know nothing of us,      But only bids us hope.     II     It still behooves us ever     From loving ne'er to sever,     To love it though it never      Reciprocate our care;     For love, when freely given,     Lets in soft hints of heaven     In memories that leaven      Black humors of despair.     III     For in this life diurnal     All earthly, gross, infernal,     Conflicts with that eternal      To make its love as lust;     To rot the fairest flower     Of thought which is a power,     All happiness to sour,      And burn our eyes with dust.     IV     Believe, some power higher     Breathes in us this desire     With purpose strange as fire,      And soft though seeming hard;     Who to such starved endeavor     And wasted love, that never     Seems recompensed, forever      Gives in His way reward.