Thomas Humphry Ward, ed. The English Poets. 1880–1918.rnVol. V. Browning to Rupert Brooke

Lord de Tabley (John Byrne Leicester Warren) (1835–1895)

Sonnet: ‘My heart is vext with this fantastic fear’

MY heart is vext with this fantastic fear,—

Had I been born too soon or far away,

Then had I never known thy beauty, dear,

And thou hadst spent on others all thy May.

The idle thought can freeze an idle brain

Faint at imagined loss of such dear prize;

I pore upon the slender chance again,

That taught me all the meaning of those eyes,

But creeps a whisper with a treason tongue—

Hadst never sunn’d beneath this maiden’s glance

Another Love thou hadst as madly sung,

For Love is certain but the loved one chance.

Deject and doubtful thus I forge quaint fear,

But question little, Love, when thou art near.