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| THERE are who say the lover’s heart | |
| Is in the loved one’s merged; | |
| O, never by love’s own warm art | |
| So cold a plea was urged! | |
| No!—hearts that love hath crowned or crossed | 5 |
| Love fondly knits together; | |
| But not a thought or hue is lost | |
| That made a part of either. * * * * * | |
| It is an ill-told tale that tells | |
| Of “hearts by love made one;” | 10 |
| He grows who near another’s dwells | |
| More conscious of his own; | |
| In each spring up new thoughts and powers | |
| That mid love’s warm, clear weather, | |
| Together tend like climbing flowers, | 15 |
| And, turning, grow together. | |
| |
| Such fictions blink love’s better part, | |
| Yield up its half of bliss; | |
| The wells are in the neighbor heart | |
| When there is thirst in this: | 20 |
| There findeth love the passion-flowers | |
| On which it learns to thrive, | |
| Makes honey in another’s bowers, | |
| But brings it home to hive. | |
| |
| Love’s life is in its own replies,— | 25 |
| To each low beat it beats, | |
| Smiles back the smiles, sighs back the sighs, | |
| And every throb repeats. | |
| Then, since one loving heart still throws | |
| Two shadows in love’s sun, | 30 |
| How should two loving hearts compose | |
| And mingle into one? | |
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