When earth was young, and love without alloy

Made all things glad and all the thoughts of things.

And like a man who wonders when he sings,

And knows not whence the power that in him lies,

I made a madrigal of all my sighs

And bade thee heed them; and I join'd therewith

The texts of these my follies that I prize.

xii.

[17] 

[17]

I spoke of men, long dead, who wooed in vain

I

I

I

And yet were happy,—men whose tender pain

Was fraught with fervor, as the night with stars.

And then I spoke of heroes' battle-scars

And lordly souls who rode from land to land

To win the love-touch of a lady's hand;

And on the strings of thy low-murmuring lute

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