The Hours of FiammettaA Sonnet Sequence
bitter dreamer, thou most art mine."

 

 

 

 

XIII

THE VOICE OF LOVE

II

"Mine, mine!" saith Love, "Although ye serve no more Mine images of ivory and bronze With flute-led dances of the days of yore, But leave them to barbarian orisons Of dull hearth-loving hearts, mistaking me:  Yet from mine incense ye shall not divorce Remembrance. Fools, these recantations be Ardours that prove you still idolators; And, though ye hurry through the circling hells Of bright ambition like hopes and energies, That haste bewrays you. My great doctrine dwells Immortal in those fevered heresies, And all the inversions of my rites proclaim The mournful memory of mine altar-flame."

 

 

 

 

XIV

DREAM-GHOSTS

White house of night, too much the ghosts come through Your crazy doors, to vex and startle me, Touching with curious fingers cold as dew Kissing with unloved kisses fierily That dwell, slow fever, through my veins all day, And fill my senses as the dead their graves. They are builded in my castles and bridges? Yea, Not therefore must my dreams become their slaves. If once we passed some kindness, must they still Sway me with weird returns and dim disgust?— Though even in sleep the absolute bright Will Would exorcise them, saying, "These are but dust," They show sad symbols, 
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